Michael Bales

I am a 2009 PhD graduate of the Department of Biomedical Informatics at Columbia University. Before coming to Columbia I served in Africa as a short-term consultant with the World Health Organization (WHO), where I helped the Togo Ministry of Health and the WHO offices in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, to build national capacity in data management and analysis. My research at Columbia was focused mainly on natural language processing, knowledge representation, and social network analysis. In my dissertation work I developed and evaluated Sciologer, a search and visualization system designed to help researchers understand scientific communities. I am currently working as the Founder and Managing Director of NMBI Systems, an informatics consulting and software business based in New York City. In this capacity I have participated as a consultant in projects pertaining to the development of the Public Health Systems and Services Research (PHSSR) community, collaboration among investigators at a Nanoscience research center, and autism genomics. My approach to network analysis is influenced by my prior background in epidemiology, which also favors a system-level approach to modeling, analysis, and prediction.

Employer:	Department of Biomedical Informatics, College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University
Position:	PhD Candidate and National Library of Medicine Training Fellow
Time period:	December 2007 - Present
Description:	• Conducting an independent research project focusing on the evaluation of the Sciologer search and visualization system. The system takes any PubMed/MEDLINE query as input, and generates an interactive visual representation of the retrieved records as output. This representation is in the form of a social network diagram of the article titles, authors, journals, institutions, substances, keywords, and grants. • The evaluation is designed to determine how useful the system is to researchers for identifying experts and potential collaborators, identifying journals in which to consider publishing, finding hidden patterns in scientific communities and “hot” research topics, understanding how a field is organized, and learning about results in other fields.

Employer:	The Simons Foundation, New York, NY
Position:	Research Fellow
Time period:	December 2006 - November 2008
Description:	• Interviewed Foundation scientific personnel to determine information needs of interdisciplinary autism researchers. • Developed automated methods to generate social network visualizations to help researchers understand complex scientific communities. • Engineered the Sciologer search and visualization system.

Employer:	Lister Hill National Center for Biomedical Communications; U.S. National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, MD; Mentor, Olivier Bodenreider, MD, PhD
Position:	Summer Research Rotation Scholar
Time period:	May 2006 - July 2006
Description:	• Conducted an independent research project focusing on a qualitative and quantitative evaluation of Restrict to MeSH, an algorithm to map biomedical terms to the MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) thesaurus.

Employer:	Columbia University, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
Position:	Teaching Assistant
Time period:	December 2005 - November 2006
Description:	Theory and Methods in Biomedical Informatics

Employer:	Columbia University, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
Position:	Teaching Assistant
Time period:	December 2004 - November 2005
Description:	Public Health Informatics

Employer:	Department of Biomedical Informatics; College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University
Position:	Ph.D. Student and National Library of Medicine Training Fellow
Time period:	December 2002 - November 2007
Description:	• Conducted an independent research project to characterize the large-scale structure of commonly used biomedical terminologies. • Conducted a review of research on graph theoretic modeling of large-scale semantic networks. • Conducted a qualitative review of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health. • Extended the MedLEE natural language processing software for use in the domain of functional status information • Member of the AQUA (natural language processing system) project team.

Employer:	World Health Organization; Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Central Africa
Position:	Consultant
Time period:	December 2002 - November 2003
Description:	• Consulted with the WHO office to improve capacity for acute flaccid paralysis and integrated disease surveillance, mapping, and data management and analysis. • Conducted presentations and training sessions on Epi Info 2002, Epi Map, and HealthMapper for WHO data management staff.

Employer:	World Health Organization, Lomé, Togo, West Africa
Position:	Consultant
Time period:	December 2001 - November 2002
Description:	• Consulted with Togo Ministry of Health to improve capacity for integrated disease surveillance, data management, and data analysis. • Collaborated with personnel in the national Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI) unit, national laboratories, and national epidemiology unit, to build data management and mapping skills. • Consulted with data managers at several of Togo’s five pilot districts for integrated disease surveillance; assessed technical considerations for decentralization.

Employer:	Division of Applied Public Health Training, Epidemiology Program Office, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Atlanta, GA
Position:	Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE) Fellow
Time period:	December 2000 - November 2002
Description:	• Created and maintained Microsoft Access database systems to support CDC training programs. • Developed Access database applications for study on adherence to antimicrobial inhalational anthrax prophylaxis among postal workers.

Employer:	Division of Applied Public Health Training, Epidemiology Program Office, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Atlanta, GA
Position:	Public Health Informatics Fellow
Time period:	December 1998 - November 2001
Description:	• Planned and created an archival database system for historic Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) documents. • Participated on a CDC team to establish enhanced public health surveillance systems at the 2000 Republican National Convention. • Taught a class on geographic information systems (GIS) in public health to first-year EIS officers.

Employer:	Nonprofit Center of Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI
Position:	Summer Intern
Time period:	May 1998 - July 1998
Description:	• Assessed risk factors for adverse birth outcomes and lead poisoning through thematic mapping and spatial analysis of community indicator variables. • Developed customized maps for clients of the Center. • Wrote FoxPro programs to read and write workspace information to automate thematic map creation process.

Employer:	Division of Epidemiology, University of Minnesota School of Public Health, Minneapolis, MN
Position:	Research Assistant
Time period:	December 1997 - November 1999
Description:	• Collaborated with the University of Minnesota Comprehensive Cancer Center to design updated information systems. • Developed site architecture, user interface, and public education components of the Center's web site. • Converted a paper-based cancer prevention campaign to electronic format for publication on the Web.

Employer:	Division of Environmental and Occupational Health, University of Minnesota School of Public Health, Minneapolis, MN
Position:	Research Assistant
Time period:	December 1996 - November 1998
Description:	• Designed and modified Access database applications for cancer screening trials. • Created an automated system to search on-line newspaper death notices nightly for study participants.

Employer:	Minnesota Department of Health, Minneapolis, MN
Position:	Information Technology Specialist
Time period:	December 1995 - November 1997
Description:	• Created and maintained an intranet and Internet site for the Acute Disease Prevention Services Section. • Assisted in the implementation and support of immunization registry and assessment software in Minnesota public health agencies. • Assisted in the research and drafting of proposed immunization registry legislation. • Conducted a review of existing state health department web sites.

University:	Columbia University
Time period:	2009
Degree:	Biomedical Informatics , PhD

University:	Columbia University
Time period:	2006
Degree:	Biomedical Informatics, MA

University:	Columbia University
Time period:	2006
Degree:	Biomedical Informatics, MPhil

University:	University of Minnesota System
Time period:	1999
Degree:	MPH in Epidemiology

University:	Macalester College
Time period:	1995
Degree:	Biology, BA

Articles:

Original Peer Reviewed Journal Articles: 1. Bales ME, Johnson SB, Lussier YA. Topological analysis of large-scale biomedical terminology structures. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association 2007;14:788-797. Available from URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1197/jamia.M2080 2. Kukafka R, Bales ME, Burkhardt A, Friedman C. Human and automated coding of rehabilitation discharge summaries according to the International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association 2006;13:508-515; Available from URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1197/jamia.M2107 3. Bales ME, Johnson SB. Graph theoretic modeling of large-scale semantic networks. Journal of Biomedical Informatics 2006;39(4):451-64. Available from URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jbi.2005.10.007 (reached #1 in the Journal of Biomedical Informatics, ScienceDirect top 25 hottest articles) 4. Bales ME, Kukafka R, Burkhardt A, Friedman C. Qualitative assessment of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health with respect to the desiderata for controlled medical vocabularies. International Journal of Medical Informatics 2005;75(5):384-95. Available from URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2005.07.026. 5. Ashford DA, Kaiser RM, Bales ME, Shutt K, Patrawalla A, McShan A, et al. Planning against biological terrorism: lessons from outbreak investigations. Emerging Infectious Diseases [serial online] 2003 May;5. Available from URL: http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/EID/vol9no5/02-0388.htm 6. Bales ME, Dannenberg AL, Brachman PS, Kaufmann AF, Klatsky PC, Ashford DA. Epidemiologic response to anthrax outbreaks: field investigations, 1950-2001. Emerging Infectious Diseases [serial online] 2002 Oct 8. Available from URL: http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/eid/vol8no10/02-0223.htm 7. Shepard CW, Soriano-Gabarro M, Zell ER, Hayslett J, Lukacs S, Goldstein S, Factor S, Jones J, Ridzon R, Williams I, Rosenstein N, and the CDC Adverse Events Working Group (Bales M, Cobb J, et al.) Antimicrobial Postexposure Prophylaxis for Anthrax: Adverse Events and Adherence. Emerg Infect Dis [serial online] 2002 Oct 8. Available from URL: http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/EID/vol8no10/02-0349.htm Peer Reviewed Proceedings Articles: 1. Weng C, Gallagher D, Bales ME, Bakken S, Ginsberg HN. Understanding interdisciplinary health sciences collaborations: A campus wide survey of obesity experts. American Medical Informatics Association Annual Symposium, Nov. 8-12, 2008, Washington DC. 2. Bales ME, Kukafka R, Burkhardt A, Friedman C. Human and automated coding of rehabilitation discharge summaries according to the International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health. 11th Annual North American Collaborating Center (NACC) Conference on the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF). Rochester MN, June 21-24, 2005. 3. Dannenberg AL, Bales ME, Brachman PS, Kaufmann AF, Ashford DA. Epidemiologic responses to anthrax outbreaks: A review of field investigations conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1950 to August 2001. American Public Health Association Annual Meeting, November 8-14, 2002.

Memberships:

American Association for the Advancement of Science 2006 – Present American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) 1999 – Present Student Working Group 2006 – Present

Awards:

Winning Entry, Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining Competition 2007 American Medical Informatics Annual Symposium Mining Potentially Interesting Hypotheses from the Nationwide Inpatient Sample Secretary’s Award for Distinguished Service 2002 In recognition of service on the World Trade Center and Anthrax Investigation Emergency Response Team National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship 2002 Honorable Mention National Merit Scholar 1991 Bausch & Lomb National Science Award 1991