The fully funded program offers career enhancement and valuable experience applying computational tools toward biological problems. Scholars are provided with a unique opportunity to perform collaborative, cutting-edge, and multidisciplinary computational science in the Midwest. Additionally, scholars may be eligible for a full-time position at the Institute after completing the program.

Inaugural Scholar Alejandro Diaz de la Vega Gonzalez, now Bioinformatician I in the lab of Associate Investigator Ariel Bazzini, Ph.D., explained how the field is advancing our understanding of living systems. “The most exciting aspect of computational biology is the potential to uncover hidden patterns and relationships in biological data.”

As technology has rapidly advanced, the ability to collect vast amounts of data has also expanded. Making sense of this data requires computational approaches such as machine learning, resulting in a growing demand for experts in computational biology and bioinformatics.

Stowers Investigator Julia Zeitlinger, Ph.D., said, “Investing in training computational biologists is crucial.” Zeitlinger, who also leads the Stowers Office of Scientific Leadership AI Initiative, further explained, “Artificial intelligence allows us to analyze and detect patterns within highly complex data, enabling us to accelerate our understanding of fundamental principles for how life works.”