PhD at computer Science program at EMORY

Colleges and Universities A-Z Emory University
1

I have received a admission letter from Biomedical informatics department in Computer science program at EMORY.
The most important thing is that EMORY has not high rank in computer science, but has a prestigious school at all.
I got a scholarship for tuition and 27K for stipend. Them money is not important for me at all.

According to these situations among Umass-Amherst, EMORY, UNC and Rutgers which one is better for Biomedical Informatics?

Thank you for your help!

2

If you want an academic position in the United States, the general prestige of the school is largely irrelevant. What matters is the ranking of the program in that field.

3

MY major (Biomedical Informatics) is an interdisciplinary topic and it is not a pure computer science track and EMORY in Biology and healthcare is very strong.

Do you think that these features have not a high imapct? and just ranking in Computer Science is important; however, my department is a part of computer science program.

Thank you for your response!

4

@AliAhmad Here are some questions you might want to find answers to:

  1. Are there specific faculty at Emory (and the other schools) who you would want to be your advisor? If so, is there mutual interest, i.e. are those faculty members interested in working with you?
  2. What kind of bioinformatics research do you want to do? If it's the kind (e.g. clinicallly related research) that requires interdisciplinary cooperation with, for example, a strong, research oriented medical school, then that might favor Emory, which has a strong medical school.
  3. What do you want to do after you finish your PhD? Tenure track faculty, industry (e.g. a pharmaceutical job), finance (e.g. a quantitative analyst at a hedge fund)?
  4. Where have graduates from the various programs you're considering been placed in the last 5 years? How does that match up with your interests/expectations?

You might also consider posting your question on quora.com.
https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-of-the-best-graduate-schools-for-a-PhD-in-Bioinformatics

5

thank you for your respond!

first my major will be Biomedical informatics which is different from Bioinformatics.

Yes, I speak with a professor in EMORY, the nature of the work is interdisciplinary; therefore, using the other faculties is inevitable. For example when you work on cancer informatics it is necessary to collaborate with different MDs.
There are a lot of different biomedical research for example big data analysis for clinical data and so forth.

The important thing is that EMORY and georgia tech have a shared program in Biomedical engineering which is 2nd in US. However, it is different from Biomedical informatics department but the student in BMI could use the opportunities in both universities,too.

I got a full fund scholarship, so EMORY’s high tuition (53K) has not a adverse effect on my decision.
according to these features I think EMORY can provide a well environment for me to continue my PhD.

My MSc was Artificial Intelligence with a concentration on computer vision. I have the choice to joint Umass-Amherst and work on Computer Vision which has rank 12 in AI.

Which do you prefer and recommend me?

Thanks!

6

@AliAhmad Which field (computer vision v. biomedical informatics) interests you more?

Which field is growing and will have more opportunities going forward?

My impression is that the application of quantitative tools to biology and medical phenomenon is still in a growth phase, which suggests that there will be more opportunity here.

Can the same be said of computer vision, which has been around longer than biomedical informatics?

7

In biomedical informatics I must uses the Machine learning and also computer vision algorithms for extraction of important knowledge in medical data.

Computer Vision track in Umass has a concentration for implementation of visual system in human for robots. so that the data is the complex world we always deal with it.

For me they are not very different both are very exciting and challenging. But I have no information about the opportunities going forward of each major.

Do you recommend me EMORY because it is more prestigious and Biomedical informatics has more speak to say in future world?

8

@AliAhmad I can’t really make a recommendation. I’m just offering my opinion about the factors you should consider.

The PhD programs (Emory’s and UMass’) should have data on the types of positions that their graduates end up getting.

The posters on Quora can offer a more informed opinion about how highly regarded Emory’s and UMass’ programs are in their respective fields.

9

Thank you!