Mission

Our Mission: Components

Our mission has three components: education, research, and outreach.

To have a global impact in advancing computational research in biology and medicine, the stakeholders across the University of Missouri System believe it is critical to the mission of the university and the development of the community to offer a doctoral program in informatics, build an international-level research program, and provide service to scientific communities for informatics needs.

The Institute, under the governance of the Graduate School, offers a doctoral degree program in the areas of bioinformatics, health informatics, and geoinformatics; a master’s of science in data science & analytics with emphasis in the areas of geospatial analytics, biohealth analytics, high performance computing, human-centered science design, and data journalism & strategic communication; and graduate certificates in data science & analytics, health data science, and geospatial analytics.

Education

  • Providing an interdisciplinary training environment that leverages the unique strengths of the Columbia campus and other University of Missouri campuses.
  • Providing students with the core competencies and research skills to be productive and independent investigators in academia, industry, and public research institutions.
  • Meeting informatics and data science workforce needs in research and application within the State of Missouri, the Midwest region, and at the national and international levels.

Research

  • Building teams of faculty members and professionals to foster main informatics research thrusts.
  • Developing signature informatics research programs to seamlessly align with the local and international research trends in life sciences, geospatial sciences, and medicine.
  • Producing high impact informatics research in the forms of, extramural funding, publication, and international recognitions.

Outreach

  • Partnering and sharing informatics resources with other campuses of the University of Missouri System, regional partners, and worldwide collaborators.
  • Disseminating informatics tools, providing web servers for advanced informatics analyses/search, and making research results/data available for others.
  • Supporting entrepreneurial activities to develop high tech industry in the region.