WPC Healthcare (WPC), a provider of professional services and predictive analytics solutions for healthcare, has initiated a Visiting Scholars Program to foster exchange and innovation in data science through collaboration with Tennessee universities.
“There’s not been a lot of interaction, and collaboration between healthcare information technology professionals and academic institutions in our market,” said Ray Guzman, WPC’s CEO. “The Visiting Scholars Program builds a bridge between data science in our industry and Middle Tennessee universities.”
The Scholars Program hopes to better prepare interested students for the data science workforce and help industry experts and academics share and learn from each other’s research. The WPC Scholars Program will take place at the company’s headquarters in Brentwood.
Todd Gary, PhD, director of the Data Science Institute at Middle Tennessee State University, will become the program’s first visiting scholar. Gary holds a doctorate in molecular biology from Vanderbilt University and has extensive expertise in data science and deep ties to the data science community in Middle Tennessee. He completed a research fellowship in the Department of Medicine at Vanderbilt and a NASA sabbatical in astrobiology at UCLA working with bioinformatics pioneer Jim Lake.
Gary will work with Damian Mingle, chief data scientist for WPC Healthcare, and his team, providing research support on groundbreaking projects that leverage data science to deliver practical solutions addressing the major clinical, financial and operational concerns of healthcare organizations.