
July 2, 2025
Medeia Csoba DeHass
Medeia Csoba DeHass is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Missouri and a doctoral faculty member at the MU Institute for Data Science and Informatics. She teaches courses on decolonizing research methodologies, digital heritage preservation, research design, and collaborating with Indigenous communities. Dr. Csoba DeHass has been working with Alaska Native communities on a variety of ethnohistorical and ethnographic projects for the past two decades. She is the recipient of an NSF CAREER award supporting her research on Indigenous perspectives and applications of digital 3D technologies in preserving and perpetuating Alaska Native heritage in…

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 to…

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 – to…

June 23, 2025
Qian Liu
Dr. Liu received her Ph.D. degree of Earth System and Geoinformation Science in May 2022 from George Mason University (GMU). Her research focuses on four aspects: 1. Climate and atmospheric factor detection, segmentation, and retrieval using artificial intelligence (AI) technologies; 2. Spatiotemporal theories and analysis in big earth data; 3. Remote sensing and climate/environmental data record processing and generation; 4. The ability of using the above to solve pressing issues in extreme weather events, climate change and natural disasters.

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 American…

April 18, 2025
Ania Rose, PhD, CPA
Professor Rose employs behavioral and psychophysiological methods to research how to improve judgment and decision making in accounting, business, and related fields. She is currently ranked as one of the top two experimental researchers in Accounting Information Systems worldwide. Professor Rose has won teaching awards at several universities for her active and research-based courses, and she has developed executive training for multiple universities and in several countries around the world.

April 8, 2025
Hatef Dastour
Dr. Hatef Dastour joined the MU Institute for Data Science and Informatics as an Assistant Teaching Professor of Data Science and Analytics in April 2025. He specializes in geomatics, remote sensing, data fusion, geospatial analytics, big data analytics, and mathematical and statistical modeling. His research integrates advanced computational methods to address critical challenges in environmental processes, climate change, water resources, and natural hazard management. He holds dual Ph.D. degrees in Applied Mathematics and Geomatics Engineering, with a focus on computational methods and geospatial analysis for environmental sustainability, climate change adaptation, and water resource management. His interdisciplinary research applies machine learning,…

Jan. 30, 2025
Lincoln Sheets
Lincoln Sheets is a physician and medical researcher who works as an Assistant Professor of Health Informatics at the University of Missouri School of Medicine. Dr. Sheets has published, presented, and taught in the areas of geospatial information systems, global health disparities, and social determinants of non-communicable disease. His research focuses on combining evidence-based medicine with information technology and business strategy, to improve health outcomes in underserved rural and minority communities of the United States and around the world. Dr. Sheets gained 20 years of experience in software engineering before earning an MD and PhD in Public Health Informatics, and…

Nov. 18, 2024
Chau Tong
My current research in computational health communication involves applying natural language processing and other computational methods to analyze the vicissitudes of user-generated health content and the diffusion of such content on social media. I direct the Computational Communication and Technology lab at Mizzou; our research team includes undergraduate RAs, graduate RAs, and PhD students. The lab is an interdisciplinary hub for the organization, curation, and processing of digital trace and social media data. Together, we develop and implement rigorous research to produce insights into the digital landscape of health content and estimated impact of such communication flows across news, search…