Introduction I am an Associate Research Scientist/Professor (Professional Researcher) at Calit2 (pronounce cal-eye-tee-two) at UC-Irvine.

My core background is in computer science with interests primarily in data management and artificial intelligence. My past and current work is in areas such as automated information extraction (from text), information integration, information agents, applications of semantic-web technologies and semi-structured data management. A strong aspect of my recent work is informatics, particularly biomedical and health informatics and earlier emergency and disaster response informatics.

My current projects are:

1.     BIRN : Developing data integration and semantics solutions for biomedical data sharing. (Recent video created by INCF on this work)

2.     Clinical Informatics: Automated Information Extraction from Unstructured (Text) Patient Records and Notes. Details here.

3.     Translational Informatics: Working with the UC Irvine Institute for Clinical Translational Science (ICTS) on semantics and data sharing.

The good thing about being at a university is the opportunity to get involved in a variety of fun things of different kinds. I am a member of:

1.     The Center for Emergency Response Technologies

2.     The Center for Biomedical Informatics, and

3.     The Center for Machine Learning and Intelligent Systems

all at UCI.

Presentations

Some recent talks indicative of the stuff I do:

1.     Information Integration, Extraction, Semantics: Addressing Biomedical Data Sharing and Analysis Challenges (PPTX slides)

Given at Case Western Reserve U, May 2010

2.     Information Extraction from Pathology Reports: An OHNLP and UMLS Powered Approach (PPTX slides)

At 7^th Health Data Warehousing Conference, Duke NC, Sep 2010

and some older presentations.

Publications

Some of my publications are available online.

XAR is a system for information extraction from free text. This is an open-source system available to researchers for use.

Prior

I led the data integration thrust in the SAFIRE project on situational awareness technologies for fire-fighter safety (2008-2009), and I also led the SAMI project on situational awareness technologies for disaster response, as part of the larger RESCUE project (2005-2009)

I did my PhD in Computer Science at the University of Southern California (USC)  in 1999, and was an RA at USC's Information Sciences Institute. I got my BTech, also in Computer Science, from   IIT, Kanpur in 1993.  Prior to joining UCI in April 2005, I worked for about 4 years at the NASA Ames Research Center .

Here is an academic CV.

Personal, Fun Stuff

1.     Interesting blogs

1.     TechCrunch

2.     KurzweilAI

2.     General

1.     For those from India , I am a big fan (to date) of Amitabh Bachchan, here are some of his dialogues from movies.

2.     And of his Dad, Harivansh Rai as well, check outMadhushala if you understand Hindi.

3.     Another great poem, Gitanjali, in English and Hindi

If you have gotten this far ..... I was born in Lucknow, India (some time in the 70s) and grew up mostly in Calcutta attending St. Paul 's and later La Martiniere high school. Cliches aside, Calcutta is a truly unique city and this article (Vir Sanghvi) accurately and eloquently captures what lies at its heart.

And most importantly - Rayan M. Ashish

News and Tidbits

(all of) 2011: The book is out !

Sep 2011: Presented our CCD and NoSQL paper at HDWA 2011

Aug 2011: We are awarded supplemental grant for data harmonzation in excercise science (NIH) !

March 2011: Started collaboration (with UCSD) on SCANNER project (AHRQ)

Dec 2010: Paper on FBIRN data integration published in Frontiers in Neuroinformatics (paper link )

Dec 2010: Engaged with UCI ICTS center

Nov 2010: Presented at Neuroscience 2010 (San Diego)

Nov 2010: Presented at EUN 2010 (San Diego)

Oct 2010: Presented at HDWA 2010 (Durham)

Aug 2010: Promoted to Associate Professor (Research)