2025 Interdisciplinary Bootcamp (UIC and UI Health)

Computer Science and EVL Professor Liz Marai and Andrew Boyd, Associate Vice Chancellor for Research and Chief Research Information Officer, organized and led the 2025 Health Data Science Interdisciplinary Bootcamp, which aims to bridge healthcare and data science research at UIC. Computer Science Associate Professor Elena Zheleva and Assistant Professor Hao Chen were among the participants, and Professor Bhaskar das Gupta was one of the bootcamp mentors.

The second annual bootcamp organized by the UIC Institute for Health Data Science Research took place on August 18-22 2025. It was the second bootcamp of this type organized at UIC, and took a quite unique and innovative approach to bridging healthcare and data science. In a 5-day long facilitated workshop, 15 researchers from the two campuses (UIC and UI Health), most of whom had not met before: formed interdisciplinary teams of 3-4 individuals around unique project ideas; learned and practiced the basic principles of team science and collaboration; received hands on training and information about funding opportunities; identified the significance and innovation of those ideas; received targeted feedback from peers and mentors, which enabled the teams to repeatedly pivot and refine the project ideas; and refined those ideas repeatedly until they turned into remarkably inventive mini-proposals for seed funding. In the following year, the Institute will work with the teams to strengthen and submit unique project proposals to federal funding agencies and other funding sources.

Link: https://hds.uic.edu/news-and-events/2025-bootcamp-information/