Brief Biosketch
Prior to joining the Computer Science faculty at Tennessee Tech, I was an Assistant Professor of Biomedical Informatics in the Vanderbilt School of Medicine. I also spent four years as a Health Systems Software Engineering at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center while I completed my PhD. I worked on and later led the development team responsible for WizOrder, VUMC's computerized clinician order entry system. I also worked closely with McKesson, Inc. to commericialize that product. It is currently being marketed as Horizon Expert Orders.

Academic/research interests
My dissertation was in the areas of machine learning and data mining and included work on the automatic discovery and ranking of interesting subgroups within a dataset and on the application of supervised and unsupervised learning to geometric search optimization.

My main research interests relate to the application of machine learning and data mining to medical informatics. Basically, I like to see how intelligent algorithms can exploit data to help clinicians make better decisions. I am also interested in agile software engineering techniques and human-computer interaction, including multi-touch displays.

Current research projects include extending our initial work on knowledge frontier discovery, applying machine learning and data mining to support truama triage, and working with University of Central Florida on developing techniques to enable computers to support ad hoc teams in medical crises.

Other significant projects
I was the one of the technical leads during the initial development of InRAD, LLC's Automated Knowledge Discovery System (AKDS). The work was funded through the Dept. of Commerce's Advanced Technology Program. AKDS is now marketed under the name, InSpire. I also led the research team for the record matching component of the MidSouth eHealth Alliance Regional Health Information Organization in the Memphis, TN region. That work was funded under a contract from AHRQ and the State of Tennessee.