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The Ph.D. degree requires approximately 40 hours of formal classwork with a grade of B or better. A Ph.D. student must pass a written and oral Comprehensive Exam after the first year of study. Graduate work at this or other institutions, including courses taken for an MS degree, may be applied to the Ph.D. coursework requirement at the discretion of the student's advisory committee. After completion of coursework, the student must pass a Ph.D. written and oral Qualifying Examination. In addition to the classwork, 14 or more hours of research work (taken as BMI 7970) are required. This work must lead to completing and defending an original Ph.D. dissertation demonstrating the student's capabilities to conceive and execute an independent research project.

CURRICULUM CUBE

The strengths of our program faculty are utilized in the building of the curriculum. This figure shows the expertise by application area (green, yellow, orange, red), methodology (grey), and focal research area (teal). After a year of core courses, students join an application track and choose methods courses as needed. The research foci are woven through the curriculum and demonstrate departmental strengths, although students are not limited to these fields.

REQUIREMENTS

  • Typically 40 hours of formal class work (varies by dissertation topic and the advice of the student’s supervisory committee);

  • Successfully pass the comprehensive and qualifying exams;

  • A minimum of 14 hours dissertation research hours; and

  • A successfully defended dissertation.

REQUIRED COURSES

COURSE

SEMESTER

Prep Courses

 

Intro to Programming

1

Probability and Statistics for Biomedicine

2

Foundational Courses

 

Research Design *

2

Terminologies and Standards *

2

Systems and Process Modeling

1

Grant Writing

3

Application Area Courses

 

Foundations of Bioinformatics * 

small-green-cube

1

Public and Population Health Informatics * yellow cube

1

Foundations of Healthcare Informatics * red cube

1

Translational Informatics (CRI) orange cube

3

Evaluation

 

Comprehensive exam

End of 2

Qualifying exam

4 +

ADDITIONAL COURSES

Ph.D. students must complete at least 21 additional credit hours after completion of core courses. This table shows the required and elective courses for the application domain tracks and the suggested courses for the methodology tracks. DBMI courses are annotated with an asterisk (*) – all others are external courses.

LEGEND
R – Required
E – Elective
S - Suggested

HC – Health care/clinical informatics red cube
CR – Clinical Research Informatics orange cube
PH – Public health informatics yellow cube
TB – Translational bioinformatics 

small-green-cube
DA – Data Science etc
SD - Sociotechnical Design
SI - Standards and Interoperability.
COURSES APPLICATIONS METHODS
HC CR PH TB DA SD SI

Foundational Courses (details in table above)

R

R

R

R

 

 

 

Clinical Decision Support (BMI6300)* red cubeyellow cube

R

 

E

 

 

 

S

Clinical Information Systems Architecture (BMI6440)* red cube orange cube

R

R

 

 

 

 

S

Implementation of Systems in Healthcare settings (BMI6804)* red cube

R

 

 

 

 

 

S

Human System Interactions (BMI6821)* red cubeyellow cube

R

 

E

 

 

S

 

Bioinformatics in Practice:RNA (BMI6019)* 

small-green-cube

 

 

 

R

 

 

 

Applied Computational Genomics (BMI6060)* 

small-green-cube

 

 

 

R

 

 

 

Applied Machine Learning (BMI6015)*

 

 

 

 

S

 

 

Deep Learning in Biomedicine (BMI6114)*

 

 

 

 

S

 

 

Clinical Database Design (BMI6203)*

 

 

 

 

S

S

 

Biomedical Text Processing (BMI6115)*

 

 

 

 

S

 

 

Biomedical Data Wrangling (BMI 6016)* orange cube yellow cube

 

R

E

 

S

 

S

Terminologies and Standards (BMI 6120/5)* orange cube

 

E

 

 

 

 

 

Data Mining (CS6140) orange cube

 

E

 

 

 

 

 

Information Technology Security (IS6570) orange cube

 

E

 

 

 

 

 

Data Warehouse Design and Implementation (IS6480) orange cube

 

E

 

 

 

 

 

Database Systems (CS5530) orange cube

 

E

 

 

 

 

 

Applied Informatics for Health Sci Research (NURS7104) orange cube

 

E

 

 

 

 

 

Health Promotion and Social Determinants (NURS7420) red cube

E

 

 

 

 

 

 

Project Management in Health Informatics (NURS6661) red cube

E

 

 

 

 

 

 

Quality Improvement in Healthcare (NURS6772) red cube

E

 

 

 

 

 

 

Systems Analysis and Implementation (NURS6807) red cube

E

 

 

 

 

 

 

Genetics & Complex Disease (HGEN6421) 

small-green-cube

 

 

 

E

 

 

 

Signal Processing (BIOEN6670) 

small-green-cube

 

 

 

E

 

 

 

Introduction to Genetic Epidemiology (MDCRC 6000) 

small-green-cube

 

 

 

E

 

 

 

Genetics and Genomes (BIOL6420) 

small-green-cube

 

 

 

E

 

 

 

Introduction to Epidemiology (MDCRC6010)

 

 

R

 

 

 

 

Biomedical Big Data Science (PHS7020) orange cube yellow cube

 

E

E

 

 

 

 

Applied Modern Causal Inference (PHS7030) yellow cube

 

 

E

 

 

 

 

Foundations of Population and Clinical Health (PHS7100) yellow cube

 

 

E

 

 

 

 

Environmental Public Health (FPMD6700) yellow cube

 

 

E

 

 

 

 

Intermediate Epidemiology (MDCRC6110) yellow cube

 

 

E

 

 

 

 

GIS Environmental & Public Health (GEOG6190)​ yellow cube

 

 

E

 

 

 

 

Data Mining (CS6140) orange cube

 

E

 

 

 

 

S

Database Systems (CS5530) orange cube

 

E

 

 

 

 

 

Introduction to Data Science, Artificial Intelligence (CS6300)

 

 

 

 

S

 

 

Visualization (CS6630)

 

 

 

 

S

 

 

Data Mining in Healthcare (IS6910)

 

 

 

 

S

 

S

Advanced Data Mining (IS6483)

 

 

 

 

S

 

 

Information Extraction from Text (CS6390)

 

 

 

 

S

 

 

Learning Semantics for NLP (CS6936)

 

 

 

 

S

 

 

Artificial Intelligence (CS5300)

 

 

 

 

S

 

 

Statistical Inference (Math5080)

 

 

 

 

S

 

 

Human Computer Interaction (CS654)

 

 

 

 

 

S

 

Ergonomics (MEEN6100)

 

 

 

 

 

S

 

Human Factors Engineering (MEEN6120)

 

 

 

 

 

S

 

Advanced Human Cognition (PSY6120)

 

 

 

 

 

S

 

Brain, Cognition and Behavior (PSY6750)​

 

 

 

 

 

S

 

Data Analysis and Decision Making (OIS6040)

 

 

 

 

 

 

S

Learning Semantics for NLP (CS6936)​

 

 

 

 

 

 

S

PhD Application Deadlines

December 1st

Online Application

Biomedical Informatics at the University of Utah