Computer science doctoral candidate Amy Olex received a travel grant to attend the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) 2019 Annual Symposium held in November in Washington, D.C. This event is considered the foremost symposium for the science and practice of biomedical informatics in the U.S.

Olex’ adviser is Bridget McInnes, Ph.D., assistant professor of computer science.

One of eight graduate students selected nationally to receive this grant, Olex attended the conference’s leadership and awards reception as well as its gala.

Olex also won second place in the conference’s graduate student symposium for her research presentation. Her research focuses on clinical natural language processing and includes collaborations with researchers at VCU’s Wright Center for Clinical and Translational Research to identify computational phenotypes to better address the opioid epidemic.

“Being an awardee of the LEAD Fund Travel Grant has led to many new contacts and opened doors to many new collaborations and career advancement opportunities,” Olex said.