Training and Experiential Learning in Biomedical Informatics (TExBioMed) - Abstract: The University of Texas at Arlington (UTA), a designated Hispanic Serving Institution, proposes the Training and Experiential Learning in Biomedical Informatics (TExBioMed) Summer Institute to increase education opportunities for underrepresented minority students in biomedical informatics, health informatics, public health informatics, and related fields and strengthen, expand, and diversify the nation’s capable workforce to meet the advances of the 21st Century. The next generation of multidisciplinary investigators will require foundational training and experience in both the life and physical sciences, as well as in computational, mathematical, and engineering disciplines to tackle increasingly complex problems that impact our health. This specialized training requires mentoring of students at an early stage of their education (preferably undergraduate). TExBioMed, a research education initiative of the Multi-Interprofessional Center for Health Informatics (MICHI) at UTA, will leverage the institutional commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion by recruiting and immersing 55 talented undergraduate students from diverse backgrounds in a training environment that will expose them to the current state-of-the-art in biomedical informatics, health and public health informatics, and data science. TEXBioMed faculty members span four participating colleges and have complementary expertise in bioinformatics, health informatics, public health informatics, bioengineering, genomics, biology, chemistry, physics, mathematics, and computer science. Through this initiative, we will provide the participating students with unique, hands-on training and research experience that will broaden their view of human health in post- genomic computational and data science research areas. The ultimate goal is to motivate these students to pursue careers in Biomedical Informatics/Data Science fields that will increase the talent pool to fulfill the needs of the nation’s current and future workforce.
