Biostatistics and Medical Informatics

School of Medicine and Public Health
Geese flying over and sitting on Lake Mendota with fog and the Wisconsin State Capital in the background.
Bucky badger statue at Alumni Park with Red gym, a tall turreted building, in the winter
Medical images of a human brain with four images of the brain with several charts based on the data in the brain images.
Zebrafish embryo image in green and blue taken with a confocal microscope
Green, yellow and orange chairs and tables on a terrace with an open lake and boats in the background.
image of a tomato illuminated by red, yellow, and green light on a black background.
Dark metal plaque on exterior of building with the words of UW-Madison's sifting and winnowing statement
Research data from a clinical trial. From left to right, green, blue, and red in a sideways z shape.

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, the Information School, 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.

UW Department of Biostatistics and Medical Informatics Staff Photo 2024

BMI faculty and research staff provide consultation and collaboration in the planning, design, conduct, and analysis of basic, translational, and clinical research.

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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

  • Congratulations to Yin Li on Patent Award

    Yi Li is part of a team awarded a patent for “Systems, Methods, and Media for Estimating a Depth and Orientation of a Portion of a Scene Using a Single Photon Detector and Diffuse Light …

    September 10, 2026

  • Guanhua Chen awarded NIH R01

    Congratulations to Guanhua Chen! He was recently awarded an NIH R01 grant for a project titled “Distributional Balancing for Complex Causal Inference in Critical Care.”

    September 9, 2026
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