Internationally Known Medical and Security Informatics Expert to Lecture at Pitt Jan. 19

PITTSBURGH—Hsinchun Chen, McClelland Professor of Management Information Systems at the University of Arizona and founding director of the University's Artificial Intelligence Lab and Hoffman E-Commerce Lab, will give a lecture, titled "Medical Informatics and Security Informatics in Digital Libraries," as part of the Digital Libraries Colloquium Series from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 19. The lecture will take place in Room 501 of the University of Pittsburgh's Information Sciences Building, 135 N. Bellefield Ave., and will be preceded by a Meet the Speaker Coffee at 1 p.m.

The Digital Libraries Colloquium Series is presented by Pitt's School of Information Sciences (SIS), University Library System, and Department of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University and its University Libraries, and the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh.

In his presentation, Chen will review several critical directions for digital library research and present research of relevance to medical informatics and security informatics, including overviews of such systems as HelpfulMED, GeneScene, COPLINK, BorderSafe, and BioPortal.

Chen's COPLINK system helps public safety agencies share and analyze criminal information. The system, which has been recommended as a national model for public safety information sharing and analysis, has been adopted in more than 150 law enforcement and intelligence agencies. This research has recently been expanded to border protection (BorderSafe), disease and bioagent surveillance (BioPortal), and terrorism informatics research (Dark Web), funded by the National Science Foundation, Central Intelligence Agency, and Department of Homeland Security.

Chen was awarded the B.S. degree from the National Chiao Tung University in Taiwan, the M.B.A. degree from the State University of New York at Buffalo, and the Ph.D. degree in Information Systems from New York University. He has received numerous awards in information technology and knowledge management, including the AT&T Foundation Award, the SAP Award, the Andersen Consulting Professor of the Year Award, the University of Arizona Technology Innovation Award, and the National Chiao Tung University Distinguished Alumnus Award. He also is an Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Fellow. A scientific counselor and advisor to the U.S. National Library of Medicine, the Academia Sinica in Taiwan, and the National Library of China, Chen has served as an advisor for major international research programs in digital libraries, digital government, medical informatics, and national security.

Chen's recent books include Medical Informatics: Knowledge Management and Data Mining in Biomedicine and Intelligence (Springer, 2005) and Intelligence and Security Informatics for International Security: Information Sharing and Data Mining (Springer, 2006).

Presented since 2001, the Digital Libraries Colloquium Series offers international experts in the emerging field of digital libraries. For more information, visit www.sis.pitt.edu/updates/colloquia/DL.html or contact Kelly Shaffer, SIS director of external relations, at 412-624-2677 or kshaffer@mail.sis.pitt.edu.

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