Computers are now extensively used throughout science, engineering, and medicine. Advances in computing allow researchers to build and test models of increasingly complex phenomena and thus to generate unprecedented amounts of data. These advances have created the need to make corresponding progress in our ability to understand large amounts of data and information arising from multiple sources. In fact, to effectively understand and make use of the vast amounts of information being produced is one of the greatest scientific challenges of the 21st Century. Visual computing, which relies on and takes advantage of, the interplay among techniques of visualization, large-scale computing, data management, and imaging, is fundamental to understanding models of complex phenomena, which are often multi-disciplinary in nature. In this talk, I will provide examples of visual computing as applied to important problems in biomedicine and discuss solving important research and clinical  problems in neuroscience, cardiology, and genetics.  
 

Bio:

Chris Johnson is the founding director the Scientific Computing and Imaging (SCI) Institute at the University of Utah where he is a Distinguished Professor of Computer Science and holds faculty appointments in the Departments of Physics and Bioengineering. His research interests are in the areas of scientific computing and scientific visualization. Dr. Johnson founded the SCI research group in 1992, which has since grown to become the SCI Institute employing over 200 faculty, staff and students. Professor Johnson serves on several international journal editorial boards, as well as on advisory boards to several national research centers. Professor Johnson has received several awards, including the the NSF Presidential Faculty Fellow (PFF) award from President Clinton in 1995 and the Governor's Medal for Science and Technology from Governor Michael Leavitt in 1999. He is a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and in 2009 he was elected a Fellow of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) and received the Utah Cyber Pioneer Award. In 2010 Professor Johnson  received the Rosenblatt Award from the University of Utah and the  IEEE Visualization Career Award.  In 2012, Professor Johnson received the IEEE IPDPS Charles Babbage Award and in 2013 Professor Johnson received the IEEE Sidney Fernbach Award . In 2014, Professor Johnson was elected an IEEE Fellow.