With the beginning of the Fall semester, Program Director Dr. Nils Gehlenborg welcomed a new cohort of 32 students in the Master of Biomedical Informatics (MBI) program in the Department of Biomedical Informatics at Harvard Medical School.

The program enrolled 17 students who are joining Harvard Medical School from top undergraduate institutions and have a broad range of educational backgrounds. These include degrees in applied mathematics, bioinformatics, biology, biochemistry, bioengineering, computer science, data science, economics, finance, electronics engineering, neurobiology, pharmaceutical sciences, and public health. They will be completing the program over three semesters and will complete their studies in December 2020.

An additional 15 postdoctoral students, including a Fulbright Fellow, enrolled in the accelerated MBI program, which is either completed over two semesters as a full time program or over four semesters as a part-time program. The majority of students in this program hold medical doctorates and are actively involved in clinical research and service. The new cohort also includes students with doctorates in pharmacy and computer science.

All MBI students will be completing core courses in biomedical informatics and data science, including statistics, data visualization, and programming. Additionally, the students will be able to take courses in precision medicine, computational biology, and clinical informatics, providing numerous opportunities to learn about cutting-edge applications of biomedical data science. A wide range of elective courses at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health (HSPH), Harvard Business School (HBS), and the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) allow students to further develop their professional profile.

A capstone project that enables students to apply their expertise and deepen their knowledge in their focus area will be conducted under the supervision of Harvard faculty over the course of several months.

As of the Fall semester 2019, the Master of Biomedical Informatics program has grown to a total of 46 students. Along with the Master of Science (SM) in Health Data Science at HSPH and the Master of Science (SM) in Data Science at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS), it is one of three Master’s programs that are part of the university-wide Harvard Data Science Initiative.

Applications for the Fall of 2020 will be due in early December 2019. Details and announcements about the Master’s program can be found on https://dbmi.hms.harvard.edu/education/master-biomedical-informatics.