2023 Innovation Lab

The participants were specifically selected, junior faculty level or researchers, who were seeking to engage with new, multidisciplinary teams to take on interesting, data-driven data science and public health challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. They came from all across the country and brought a balance between being more biomedically focused and those who described themselves as more quantitative.

At the conclusion of the 5 day lab, participants created 8 research projects and aim to continue to develop these projects over the next few months and years with the intent to submit for funding and get published.

The mentors were senior investigators that brought their experience, encouragement, and support to the developing teams of junior faculty. Mentors met with the teams as they are forming to provide feedback, guidance, and direction. They reinforced the positive aspects of potential team projects while asking clarifying questions about areas in need of improvement. The mentors were a vital element to participants’ successes at the Biomedical Data Science Innovation Lab.

The mentor team included Dr. Katherine Kim of MITRE Corporation, Dr. Madhav Marathe of University of Virginia, Julia Roper of Panorama Strategy, Dr. Vinay Pai of the Food and Drug Administration, and Dr. Vivien Bonazzi of Deloitte.

At various times during the Biomedical Data Science Innovation Lab it is important to be challenged, pushed, encouraged, and disrupted. Provocateurs are domain experts who gave short but disruptive talks, seeking to expand the bounds of the thinking. Speakers give short lectures about their experiences to make connections with participants and their research projects formed at the Lab.

Provocateurs included William Petri of University of Virginia and Alex Bui of University of California Los Angeles. Speakers included Micaela Parker of the Academic Data Science Alliance (ADSA) and Shawn O’Neil of University of Colorado Biomedical Informatics.