This award funds a CISE REU program entitled Research on Biomedical Informatics at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. The objectives of this program are to expose students to the concepts, techniques, applications, excitement and rewards of Computer Science (CS) and Biomedical Informatics research, to stimulate the students interests in these fields, to improve students research and communication skills, and to encourage them to pursue a career in CS. The three year program will support the research activities of ten undergraduate students per year for a nine week period. Each student project is derived from on-going faculty-led research projects. The research activities in this proposal will contribute to the understanding of the fundamental theory, principles, and techniques in data mining, information retrieval, networking, security, and privacy. Immediate impacts of these research activities include: (1) enhanced and supported decision making and data mining for clinicians and biomedical researchers; (2) new computing resources for the biomedical network platform and telemedicine; and (3) new protections against potential security breaches leading to improved patient privacy and safety. The research areas in this program cover some of the most challenging research questions in Biomedical Informatics, and each project has the long-term potential to improve the quality of health care, reduce medical errors, provide safer care at a lower cost, and advanced biomedical research. This program helps prepare a workforce of young scientists in CS. This program also allows a diverse group of talented undergraduates to gain valuable research and communication skills and improve self-confidence, creative thinking, and independent problem solving.
