Campus News
June 30, 2011
New biomedical informatics department created
Joel Saltz
The School of Medicine has launched a new Department of Biomedical Informatics.
The new unit will enhance opportunities for education and training, research and improved health care delivery in an emerging field of medicine.
It also will allow recruitment of new faculty and will help foster collaboration among the increasing number of related informatics programs throughout the University.
Joel Saltz, director of the Emory Center for Comprehensive Informatics, will chair the new department.
"The launch of this new department, which has been in the planning stages for several years, is a landmark event that signifies the dramatic growth of the field of biomedical informatics generally, its critical importance to medical advancement and the growing strengths of bioinformatics and biomedical informatics in the School of Medicine and other areas in the University," says Saltz.
Over the past few years Emory has experienced rapid growth in a number of programs in biomedical informatics and computational life sciences:
• The Department of Biostatistics in Rollins School of Public Health recently has expanded to become the Department of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics.
• Emory's Computational and Life Science Strategic Initiative is another pivotal interdepartmental Emory program that spans computer science, physical sciences, life sciences and biomedicine.
• A new doctoral concentration in biomedical informatics, housed in Emory's mathematics and computer science department, will enroll its first class of students this fall.
