Curriculum

In August, new trainees receive orientation on policies and procedures and meet individually with the graduate program manager for personalized advising. They are given a tour of the department where most department courses are taught. Students are assigned academic advisors from core faculty and meet with them at least once a term for assistance with ongoing course selection and support over the course of their PhD. Incoming students also meet individually with the graduate program director for an orientation to our program. The Office of Graduate Affairs (OGA) organizes a week of activities for all trainees in the Coordinated Doctoral Programs in Biomedical Sciences at the end of August to acclimate the students to Columbia and New York City. Students also receive support from elected student representatives. To orient students to the field of biomedical informatics, they are registered to attend the annual American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) symposium held in the fall.

PhD students are required to rotate among faculty research labs during their first year, and select a permanent research advisor by end of their first year.   Students are allowed to do two research rotations, and an occasional third, if approved by the graduate program director and OGA.

• First year fall semester: Acculturation to Programming and Statistics, Introduction to Computer Application in Health Care and Biomedicine
• First year spring semester: Methods II: Machine Learning for Healthcare, Methods I: Symbolic AI for Health Care
• Second year fall semester: Research Methods OR Biological Sequence Analysis
• Second year spring semester: Responsible Conduct of Research and Related Policy Issues
• Third year: MPhil Teaching Experience (prerequisite for MPhil)

All students are required to take the Breadth Exam, generally at the end of their second year. The Breadth Exam is designed to assess the student’s breadth of knowledge of the field, the ability to express this knowledge in writing and verbally, reason with it, and to synthesize concepts from different areas. The Breadth exam includes a 3-hour written portion and a follow-up 1-hour oral examination. In the written part, students answer 4 out of 6 scenario-based multi-component questions, which require them to integrate their knowledge from different courses and areas, reason over them, and present it in an informative manner. Informal sessions are organized to help students to prepare for these exams. To ensure consistency, the exam is graded and carried out by members of the training committee for all students.

Pre-doctoral students take a Depth Exam, usually 12 months after the breadth exam, and no earlier than six months before they intend to sit for the dissertation proposal exam per GSAS rules. This exam is generally the final requirement before a PhD student receives the MPhil degree and applies for doctoral candidacy. The goal of this exam is to assess the ability of the trainee to survey the literature in their area of research, synthesize available knowledge, identify gaps, and propose research questions to address these gaps. Before an exam is scheduled, the thesis committee reviews the student’s work to date and assess the student’s readiness to undertake the exam. The depth exam is also an opportunity for trainees to present in-depth research topics to a general informatics audience during the public session of the exam.

Pre-doctoral students have a thesis advisory committee that consists of the primary faculty advisor, and two additional faculty members, at least one of whom must be a member of the core DBMI faculty. Students and their advisory committee meet every 9 months and every 3 months in the last year of the PhD.

The department organizes an annual one-day retreat for DBMI faculty, students, and senior staff. This is held at the beginning of the new academic year so that incoming trainees can get to know others, and to learn about our department before the onslaught of course work is upon them. Current students have an opportunity to present their work in poster sessions. In addition, several selected former trainees in biomedical informatics serve on a panel called “Life after DBMI,” where they discuss their experience in DBMI, their career and research paths, and provide advice to students.

Every other year, the department organizes a two-day retreat late Spring for DBMI faculty and PhD students that focuses on a specific theme and provides external talks and activities for strategic planning of research at the departmental level. In 2018, for instance, DMBI focused its retreat on the topic of data science.