Aug. 24, 2026

Yaswitha Jampani

Aug. 20, 2026

Arpita Howlader

I am a PhD student in Informatics at the University of Missouri–Columbia, where I serve as a Graduate Research Assistant at the MU Institute for Data Science and Informatics. With more than nine years of teaching experience at the undergraduate and graduate levels, I am currently on study leave from my role as Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Engineering. My research interests include artificial intelligence and machine learning for healthcare and data visualization, quantum computing, biomedical informatics, and drug repositioning to develop intelligent and context-aware healthcare solutions.

Feb. 20, 2026

Changyu Sun

Dr. Changyu Sun specializes in data- and physics-driven imaging for cardiovascular disease. His work integrates generative AI–enhanced cardiac MRI with physics-guided, self-supervised learning to improve image quality, motion robustness, and quantitative assessment of cardiac function and perfusion. Using both human and large-animal models, his research aims to advance early detection and mechanistic understanding of cardiopulmonary disease.

Feb. 17, 2026

Tanu Malik

Tanu Malik is an associate professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Missouri. Her research focuses on big data management, accountable and reproducible distributed and parallel systems and trustworthy AI. At Mizzou, she leads the RADIANT Lab, supported by funding from the National Science Foundation, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Department of Energy and the Bloomberg Foundation. Her lab has pioneered innovative solutions in reproducible and accountable systems for trustworthy AI, benefiting scientists across multiple domains. Malik is a recipient of the NSF CAREER Award and a DoE Better Scientific…

Sep. 5, 2025

Samrat Kumar Dey

I am a PhD student in Informatics specializing in Medical Informatics at the University of Missouri–Columbia, where I serve as a Graduate Research Assistant at the MU Institute for Data Science and Informatics in the Interdisciplinary Data Analytics and Search (iDAS) Lab. With more than nine years of teaching experience at the undergraduate level, I am currently on study leave from my role as Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Engineering. My research interests include Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning for Healthcare, Agentic AI, Data Visualization, and Visual Reasoning, with a strong emphasis on disease predictive modeling, healthcare decision-making,…

June 24, 2025

Fares Alahdab

Fares Alahdab, MD, MS, MSc, FAHA, is an associate professor of biomedical informatics, biostatistics, epidemiology and cardiology, and the director of graduate studies in health informatics at the University of Missouri School of Medicine. Dr. Alahdab’s clinical and research interests converge at the intersection of cardiovascular medicine, cardiometabolic health, advanced cardiovascular imaging and artificial intelligence. His work incorporates multimodal data sources to assess cardiovascular health and disease. In the research space, Dr. Alahdab applies machine learning and artificial intelligence to build predictive models that evaluate cardiovascular risk and outcomes. A central focus of his work is on explainable AI…

June 24, 2025

Randi Foraker

Dr. Foraker is Professor and Chair of the Department of Biomedical Informatics, Biostatistics & Medical Epidemiology at the University of Missouri School of Medicine. She is trained as an epidemiologist and holds fellowships in the American Heart Association, American Medical Informatics Association, and the American College of Medical Informatics. Dr. Foraker specializes in the design of population-based studies and the integration of electronic health record data with socioeconomic indicators as well as the use of synthetic data for research. Her recent research has focused on the application of clinical decision support – embedded in the electronic health record –…

June 23, 2025

James McClay

Dr. McClay is a professor in the newly organized Biomedical Informatics, Biostatistics, and Medical Epidemiology department at the University of Missouri. He is the Chief Research Informatics Officer for the School of Medicine and the Co-principal investigator for the Greater Plains Collaborative Research Network, a PCORnet Clinical Data Research Network. His research and advocacy focus on standardizing evidence-generation pipelines for learning health systems. Dr. McClay is a long-standing Health Level Seven (HL7) workgroup chair, instructor, and advocate for the HL7 FHIR specifications. He has practiced Emergency Medicine for 30 years and is a Fellow and informatics leader for the…

June 18, 2025

Zaynab Shakkour

I am a PhD student in Bioinformatics with a Master’s degree in Neuroscience from the University of Missouri. My scientific interests center on leveraging cutting-edge tools in bioinformatics and AI to enhance personalized diagnoses and improve treatment strategies. My current research focuses on autism and rare diseases, combining neurogenomics and informatics to uncover genetic underpinnings that enable subgroup discovery and advance precision medicine through drug repurposing. I am excited to serve as Secretary of the Graduate Student Organization and look forward to helping build a more connected and supportive student community!