Dissertation Defense – UNDERSTANDING GENOME COMPOSITION OF EUSOCIAL HYMENOPTERAN INSECTS

Genome sequencing of the Western honey bee (Apis mellifera), a model for the biology and evolution of eusocial behavior, has revealed unusual genome compositional characteristics, including a low but heterogeneous GC content, bimodal GC content distribution, and a biased tendency of genes to be located in low GC regions. In this dissertation, we sought to determine whether those features are specific to Apis or shared with other insects and the biological meaning of those features. Chapter 1 reviews the major concepts that tie my dissertation research together, highlighting the importance of recombination, GC composition, and their relationship to the evolution of eusociality.

MUIDSI Core Faculty Member Receives $2M Grant

Dr. Lori Popejoy, MUIDSI core faculty member and associate professor in the Sinclair School of Nursing, was recently awarded a $2M grant from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality to study the responses in nursing homes to COVID-19. Read More……

MUDSI PhD Student Caleb Grohmann Selected for the Future Leaders for Food and Agriculture (FFAR) Fellowship

Congratulations to second-year PhD student Caleb Grohmann, who was one of twenty-six doctoral students in the country to be selected for the Future Leaders for Food and Agriculture (FFAR) Fellowship. Caleb works under the direction of core faculty member Dr. Jared Decker. Read the full article here.

MD – Informatics PhD student, Cynthia Tang, wins the American College of Physicians 2021 National Virtual e-Poster Competition

Cynthia Tang is a first-year MD- Informatics PhD program student in Dr. Henry Wan’s lab. In her poster presentation “Assessing the clinical, epidemiological, and molecular implications of SARS-CoV-2 in Missouri”, Cynthia presented her research findings on SARS-CoV-2 viruses. In the May 14, 2021 American College of Physicians (ACP) town hall meeting, the Award Committee announced this news and said that ~600 abstracts were submitted in the medical student division, and 200 were selected as finalists to compete in the ePoster competition. Cynthia was one of five national research winners. Congratulations to Cynthia and Henry!  https://www.acponline.org/membership/residents/competitions-awards/acp-national-abstract-competitions/…

Teaching Professor Faculty Positions in Data Science and Analytics

 Description: The University of Missouri (MU) Institute for Data Science and Informatics (IDSI) is accepting applications for multiple positions of Teaching Professor (Assistant and Associate levels) of Data Science and Analytics. In today’s information-centric world, data are becoming increasingly important for the success of businesses in every industry. Data science at MU is an interdisciplinary field with collaborators from a variety of academic areas, such as computer science, journalism, information science, healthcare, and bioinformatics. The data science and analytics curriculum covers the entire life-cycle from data ingestion and conditions at source through to business intelligence and decision making products. The…

Dr. DeSouza Appointed to Associate Editor Position for IEEE Transactions on Artificial Intelligence

Dr. Gui DeSouza, MUIDSI core faculty member and co-leader of the Data-Driven Ag Initiative, has been appointed as an associate editor to the new journal IEEE Transactions on Artificial Intelligence. The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers plans to launch the journal next month. It’s a joint publication among several IEEE societies, with IEEE’s Computational Intelligence Society (CIS) taking the lead. To read more about the journal and Dr. DeSouza’s appointment, click here.

MUIDSI and MUIDSI Graduate Student Organization to Host Virtual Symposium August 20th-21st

Join us on August 20th-21st as we host our annual Data Science and Informatics Symposium online via Zoom. This year we welcome four keynote speakers, a keynote panel, six faculty research talks, four student presentations, a start-up panel, and a COVID-19 panel featuring the latest contributions from MU faculty and students. For a full schedule click here. For free registration, please visit our Eventbrite site.

Three NSF RAPID grants led by MUIDSI Core Faculty to Tackle COVID-19 Pandemic

MUIDSI core faculty are leading the following ongoing NSF RAPID projects for COVID-19: Dr. Steven Van Doren is the sole PI for “RAPID: Structure of Membrane-Bound Fusion Peptide of SARS-CoV-2 Required for Infection.”  Dr. Praveen Rao is the PI for “RAPID: Democratizing Genome Sequence Analysis for COVID-19 Using CloudLab” with Co-PIs Drs. Wesley Warren, Peter Tonellato, Eduardo J. Simoes, and Deepthi Rao. Dr. Chi-Ren Shyu is the PI for “RAPID: Geospatially-Enabled Deep Analytics for Real-time Mitigation and Response to COVID-19 Outbreak for American Rural Populations” with Co-PIs Drs. Mirna Becevic,…

MUIDSI Core Faculty Member, Dr. Laura Schopp, PIs Grant Helping Rural Areas

Dr. Laura Schopp, professor and chair of health psychology, received a $1.2 million grant from the US Health Resources and Services Administration to help fight the opioid epidemic.  Read more……