Education and Training
Reproducible Research in Brain Imaging Genetics (RR-BIG)
July 13–31, 2026 | University of Minnesota
The NIH-funded Reproducible Research in Brain Imaging Genetics (RR-BIG) summer course provides intensive training in statistical genetics, neuroimaging, polygenic risk scores, heritability estimation, population structure, AI, and reproducible biomedical data science.
The three-week, in-person program uses UMN Genomic Data Commons tools, the ABCD Study, and the Neuroscience Biomarker Data Commons (NBDC) to provide hands-on experience with large-scale brain imaging and genomic data.
Participants take part in lectures, hands-on laboratories, seminars, roundtable discussions, and mentored group projects.
The primary mission of this training grant is to prepare Biostatistics doctoral students for leadership roles in biomedical and public health research through excellent training and mentorship in genetics and genomics. As a part of the training grant curriculum, students collaborate with Masonic Institute of the Brain faculty on GDC-related projects.
Computing Tool Development for Reproducible Research
June 13 to August 22, 2023
11:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.
131A Bruininks Hall or via Zoom
This workshop aims to teach students how to take prototyped analytic approaches and develop those approaches into tools that conform to FAIR (Findable Accessible Interoperable Reusable) standards and leverage HPC (High-Performance Computing) environments. The workshop comprises a 3-month course designed for researchers with undergraduate/masters statistical backgrounds. Knowledge of at least one programming language needed with experience programming analytic (e.g. machine-learning, statistics, data science, computer science) tools. The workshop is currently optimized for R, so students working with R will benefit the most. The workshop can be taken by students of any age. The workshop will be capped at 16 students to ensure teaching is sufficiently enriched per student.
