Biomedical Informatics and Health Equity (BIHE) Monthly Seminar
Introduction
One of the great challenges in providing health care for all is health equity. Our health systems, payment models and health care access are built upon historical inequalities that led to disparities in access, diagnosis, treatment and outcomes. The field of biomedical and health informatics works to improve the collection, use and research into biomedical data. With the current nationwide deployment of Health IT, the ability to analyze data, and predict and improve disease outcomes has grown exponentially. However, far too many commercial and government policies, and research approaches perpetuate our current structural health inequities into the algorithms for AI/ML-approaches in digital health. The Biomedical Informatics and Health Equity Monthly Seminar Series will highlight the multi-faceted nature of these challenges and bring faculty, staff and trainees together to learn about current research and spark new collaborations to address health disparities.
Sponsored by the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research, College of Medicine, College of Applied Health Sciences, and Institute for Health Data Science Research.
BIHE Speakers
2025-2026
| Date | Time | Presenter(s) | Title | Registration |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wednesday, 10/22/25 | 12:00pm - 1:00pm | Dr. Linda Chang Associate Professor of Clinical Family Medicine Family and Community Medicine – Rockford Dr.Radhika Sreedhar Associate Professor of Clinical Family Medicine Director of Curricular Integration College of Medicine Chicago | Explainable AI in Healthcare | -- |
| Wednesday, 11/12/25 | 12:00pm - 1:00pm | Jaideep Deshpande Executive Director of Strategy and Marketing | AI in Dentistry: Smart Smiles and the Future of Oral Health | -- |
| Wednesday, 1/14/26 | 12:00pm - 1:00pm | Jida Huang, PhD Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering | Geometric Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Engineering Design Informatics for Biomedical and Health Applications | RSVP |
| Wednesday, 2/18/26 | 12:00pm - 1:00pm | Dr. Laura Monahan Director, University of Illinois Chicago College of Nursing Rockford Campus Co-Director, Rural Nursing Program Associate Clinical Professor | Medical residents shadowing a Wound/Ostomy/Continence Nurse to develop interprofessional competencies: A quality improvement project | -- |
| Wednesday, 3/18/26 | 12:00pm - 1:00pm | Dr. Yingda Lu Associate Professor | TBD | -- |
| Friday, 4/8/26 | 12:00pm - 1:00pm | Dr. Karl Kochendorfer Chief Health Information Officer Associate Chief Medical Officer Professor of Clinical Family and Community Medicine Professor of Clinical Pathology Clinical Professor of Biomedical and Health Information Sciences | The Role of Informatics in our Innovation Clinic | -- |
| Wednesday, 5/13/26 | 12:00pm - 1:00pm | Yovia (Yue) Xu Clinical Assistant Professor Health Disparities Course Director | Lipidomics and Alzheimer's disease | -- |
| Wednesday, 6/17/26 | 12:00pm - 1:00pm | Dr. Natalie Reizine Assistant Professor of Clinical Medicine, Department of Medicine Hematology/Oncology | TBD | -- |
2024-2025
| Date | Time | Presenter(s) | Title | Registration |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wednesday, 10/23/24 | 12:00pm - 1:00pm | Eleanor Rivera, PhD Assistant Professor Population Health Nursing Science | Coding Social Determinants of Health Using ICD-10 Z-codes: Challenges and Opportunities | -- |
| Wednesday, 11/20/24 | 12:00pm - 1:00pm | Rosie Hanneke, PhD Associate Professor & Head Information Services and Research University Library Amelia Brunskill, PhD Associate Professors & Information Services & Liaison Librarians University Library | Systematic searching for the Social Determinants of Health | -- |
| Wednesday, 2/12/25 | 12:00pm - 1:00pm | Ranga Chandrasekaran, PhD Professor & Director of Graduate Studies for MS in MIS Information and Decision Sciences | An AI Approach to Detecting Mental Illnesses from Social Media Posts | -- |
| Wednesday, 3/19/25 | 12:00pm - 1:00pm | Linda Chang, PhD and Radhika Sreedhar, PhD Associate Professors of Clinical Family Medicine | Integration of AI and its impact on health disparities in Medical Education | |
| Friday, 4/25/25 (In Person) | In-person Presentations (Lunch will be provided) 12:00pm - 2:00pm Student Center West Michele Thompson Room C | IHDSR Seed Funding Awardee Teams | 1. Fighting drug resistant bacteria with AI-driven designs 2. Reducing cardiometabolic risks for children prescribed atypical antipsychotics 3. Increasing racial diversity in colon cancer clinical trials | |
| Wednesday, 6/11/25 | 12:00pm - 1:00pm | Sugasini Dhavamani, PhD Research Assistant Professor Endocrinology/Diabetes and Metabolism | Lipidomics and Alzheimer's disease | RSVP |
2023-2024
| Date | Time | Presenter(s) | Title | Registration |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wednesday, 9/20/23 | 12:00pm - 1:00pm | Lewis Hsu, PhD Professor of Clinical Pediatrics Director of the Sickle Cell Program | Implementing registries in sickle cell disease – stories behind the data | -- |
| Wednesday, 10/18/23 | 12:00pm - 1:00pm | Mohan Zalake, PhD Research Assistant Professor Biomedical and Health Information Sciences | Virtual Humans, Real Impact: How Digital Agents Can Advance Health Equity | -- |
| Wednesday, 11/8/23 | 12:00pm - 1:00pm | Neeraj Chhabra, MD, MSCR Visiting Assistant Professor Emergency Medicine & Medical Toxicology | Using Emergency Department Electronic Health Record Data to address the Opioid Epidemic | -- |
| Wednesday, 12/13/23 | 12:00pm - 1:00pm | Ashley M. Hughes, PhD Assistant Professor Department of Biomedical and Health Information Sciences Joshua Hamer, PhD Assistant Professor Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Baylor College of Medicine Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center | Diversity in Primary Care Teams and Implications for Patient Outcomes | -- |
| Wednesday, 1/24/24 | 12:00pm - 1:00pm | Anuj Tiwari, PhD Senior Research Associate Research Assistant Professor Discovery Partners Institute | Mapping Vulnerability in Pandemic Response: Optimizing Wastewater Epidemiology with Geospatial Intelligence | -- |
| Wednesday, 3/20/24 - Cancelled | 12:00pm - 1:00pm | Melvin Speisman, MD FACP Assistant Professor Department of Medicine Division of Academic Internal Medicine | Using Artificial Intelligence to improve the Care of Patients with Congestive Heart Failure | -- |
| Wednesday, 4/24/24 | 12:00pm - 1:00pm | Donghua Tao, PhD Professor and Associate Dean Associate University Librarian for the Health Sciences | If ChatGPT can answer medical questions | -- |
| Wednesday, 5/22/24 | 12:00pm - 1:00pm | Runa Bhaumik, PhD Research Assistant Professor Psychiatry | Exploring Bias Mitigation Strategies in Health Recommender Systems Utilizing Language Models: An Inquiry for Healthcare Professionals | -- |
| Wednesday, 6/5/24 | 12:00pm - 1:00pm | Ameen Salahudeen, MD, PhD Assistant Professor Hematology/Oncology Medicine | Improving lung cancer health equity through Artificial Intelligence applications | RSVP |
2022-2023
| Date | Time | Presenter(s) | Title | Registration |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wednesday, 9/21/22 | 12:00pm - 1:00pm | Garth Rauscher Associate Professor of Epidemiology | Creation of a research database and infrastructure to understand drivers of care quality and outcomes among breast cancer patients at UIC | -- |
| Wednesday, 10/19/22 | 12:00pm - 1:00pm | Lu Cheng Assistant Professor of Computer Science | Sequential Bias Mitigation and the Need for Causal Fairness | -- |
| Wednesday, 11/16/22 | 12:00pm - 1:00pm | Vincent Freeman Associate Professor of Epidemiology | Spatial Access to Primary Care and Colorectal Cancer Survival Outcomes in Cook County, IL | -- |
| Wednesday, 12/14/22 | 12:00pm - 1:00pm | Spyros Kitsiou Associate Professor of Biomedical and Health Information Sciences | Development and testing of a multi-component mobile health technology intervention to improve self-care adherence in patients with chronic heart failure | -- |
| Wednesday, 1/18/23 | 12:00pm - 1:00pm | Niranjan Karnik Professor Department of Psychiatry - CS | Using Data Science and Machine Learning to Address Substance Use in the Hospital Setting | -- |
| Wednesday, 3/15/23 | 12:00pm - 1:00pm | Sage Kim Associate Professor Health Policy and Administration | How Social Becomes Biological: Context Specific Lung Cancer Risk | -- |
| Wednesday, 5/17/23 | 12:00pm - 1:00pm | Jacob Krive Assistant Professor Biomedical and Health Information Sciences | Clinical analytics and AI in support of equitable access to cardiovascular care for oncology patients | RSVP |
2021-2022
| Date | Time | Presenter(s) | Title | Registration |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wednesday, 11/10/21 | 12:00pm - 1:00pm | Beatriz Penalver Bernabe Assistant Professor Department of Biomedical Engineering | A Whole Person Approach to Study Perinatal Depression in Women of Color | -- |
| Wednesday, 2/23/22 | 12:00pm - 1:00pm | Shweta Yadav Bridge to the Faculty (B2F) Fellow Department of Computer Science | Exploring Social Media to Understand Mental Health | -- |
| Wednesday, 3/16/22 | 12:00pm - 1:00pm | Bhrandon Harris Assistant Professor Department of Family and Community Medicine | Intentionality in the Application of Health Data | -- |
| Wednesday, 4/20/22 | 12:00pm - 1:00pm | Olusolu Ajilore University of Illinois Center for Depression and Resilience (UI CDR) Professor of Psychiatry | Low Cost, High Tech, All Access: Lowering Barriers to Care with Digital Mental Health | -- |
| Wednesday, 5/4/22 | 12:00pm - 1:00pm | Jun Ma Professor Department of Medicine | Precision Health through Translational Behavioral Medicine Research | -- |
| Wednesday, 6/15/22 | 12:00pm - 1:00pm | Emily Gregori Assistant Professor Department of Special Education | Advances in Behavioral Health Interventions for Adolescents and Adults with Autism: Applications of a Family-Centered Telehealth Program | -- |
| Wednesday, 6/29/22 | 12:00pm - 1:00pm | Amit Sethi Adjunct Professor Department of Pathology | Towards Precision Oncology using Machine Learning on Digital Pathology | -- |
Upcoming Seminars
Feb
18
2026
Medical residents shadowing a Wound/Ostomy/Continence Nurse to develop interprofessional competencies: A quality improvement project
Wednesday, 12:00 pm–1:00 pm
Virtual