Ethical Bio and Health Informatics

The Mozilla Foundation and the Department of Computer Science are pleased to present a visit by a bio and health informatician, Dr. Kiran Bastola. Dr. Bastola is an associate professor of bioinformatics in the School of Interdisciplinary Informatics at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. On Monday, December 2, at 2:30 p.m. in Alden 101, Dr. Bastola will give a presentation titled “Learning the Right From … in Our Technical World,” highlighting vulnerabilities in the wake of big data in the life sciences. Coffee, tea and light snacks will be available for the talk. Preceding the presentation, Dr. Bastola will host an information session and a Q&A on “Careers in Bioinformatics and Health Informatics” in Alden 109 at noon. Lunch for the information session will be provided. Please RSVP for both events here.

As medicine and technology continue to intersect and bioinformatics draws from both life and computer science expertise, Dr. Bastola has been able to successfully bring his hybrid skills into the classroom and into his research, for example, through a study of information transmission and exchange in living systems, building growing environments (called a food computer by MIT Open Ag Initiative), and development of an integrated computational framework to support network pharmacology research.