Mission
Advancing data science to accelerate biomedical research and improve human health
About Us
The Department of Biostatistics & Medical Informatics (BMI) is the home of data science for the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine & Public Health (UW SMPH), an academic medical center. BMI is a leading research hub and training center for biomedical data sciences, including biostatistics and biomedical informatics.
BMI investigators are engaged in basic discovery science, clinical trials, image analysis, genomics, computational biology, and population studies, and they advance research throughout the SMPH. This research is often multi-faceted and collaborative, and faculty have joint or affiliate appointments with many other campus units: Statistics, Computer Sciences, Population Health Sciences, Electrical and Computer Engineering, the Morgridge Institute for Research, and the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery.
BMI is home to MS and PhD Programs in Biomedical Data Science (BDS). Our faculty contribute to many other degree programs, including the Biostatistics Degree Option (Dept of Statistics), Clinical Investigation, Computer Sciences, Electrical and Computer Engineering, and several professional degree programs.
BMI faculty and research staff provide consultation and collaboration in the planning, design, conduct, and analysis of basic, translational, and clinical research.
PhD in Biomedical Data Science
The current explosion of biomedical data, including Electronic medical records (EHR), biomedical imaging, and genomics/proteomics/metabolomics, provide an awesome opportunity to improve understanding of the mechanisms of disease and ultimately to improve human health care. The Doctoral Degree Program in Biomedical Data Science will provide you with a unique blend of skills including programming, data management, data analysis, and machine learning. Successful graduates will be prepared to fully harness the power of high-dimensional, heterogeneous data. Potential students include both students with bachelor’s degrees in an area of data-science (e.g., computer science, statistics), as well as health professionals, clinicians, and others with degrees related to biomedicine (e.g., biology, biochemistry, genetics). Consider applying today!
News and Events
BMI Research Paper Highlighted in All of Us publication
Congratulations to Guanhua Chen, Zhengzheng Tang, BDS alumnus Jifan Gao, and collaborators on having a recently published paper highlighted in the “All of Us Research Highlights” series. This paper was selected because of its public …
February 4, 2026Spencer Halberg (Roy Lab) – publication and cover of Nucleic Acids Research
Spencer Halberg of Sushmita Roy’s lab is co-first author on a paper titled “A network-based model of Aspergillus fumigatus elucidates regulators of development and defensive natural products of an opportunistic pathogen” that was published in Nucleic …
January 13, 2026- More News posts