Training Grants

CGSI administers training grants that support graduate students and postdoctoral fellows at UW-Madison. These training grants represent a strong educational commitment within the CGSI and seed communities around genomics and biomedical computation on campus

The NIH NHGRI-funded Genomic Sciences Training Program (GSTP), founded and directed by CGSI faculty member David Schwartz, has been training pre- and post-doctoral genomicists on campus for nearly 16 years. The program brings together over 50 engaged faculty trainers spanning 16 departments. Trainees have gone on as leaders in genomic sciences – 38% of former postdoctoral trainees lead academic labs and many others conduct genomic research in industry (including industry leaders such as Illumina and Color Genomics). The program features specialized coursework and its own trainee seminar series designed to foster innovative, cross-disciplinary thinking. An annual highlight is the widely attended GSTP retreat, which brings in leading genomicists and inventors from around the world and showcases the research of current GSTP trainees as well as other like-minded researchers excited to participate in the genomics community that GSTP has seeded. It is an exceptional training environment, focused on producing genomic inventors and innovators who will produce new paradigms in biology. Contact GSTP coordinator Louise Pape (lpape@wisc.edu) for questions related to GSTP.

The Computation and Informatics in Biology and Medicine training program (CIBM), funded by the NIH National Library of Medicine, is a partnership between UW-Madison and the Marshfield Clinic Research Institute (MCRI) and is co-directed by CGSI faculty Mark Craven and Colin Dewey. The CIBM mission focuses on the development of novel, state-of-the-art computational methods for advancing biomedicine. CIBM trains graduate students at UW Madison. Former trainees have gone on to diverse careers in biomedicine; several are now in faculty positions at top institutions and others lead data-science initiatives in industry (at Ancestry, GE Healthcare, Bayer Crop Science, and others). CIBM holds a weekly seminar series for its students and hosts an annual retreat that brings together biomedical data scientists from multiple divisions on campus. CIBM has a strong track record recruiting and training under-represented minority students. The coordinator of the CIBM and GSTP programs (currently Dr. Louise Pape) also assists with the Summer Research Program in Biomedical Data Science, which brings in undergraduate students from under-represented groups for a summer research experience to arm them for competitive application to graduate school. Contact CIBM coordinator Louise Pape (lpape@wisc.edu) for questions related to CIBM.