{"id":13355,"date":"2026-02-09T09:14:33","date_gmt":"2026-02-09T15:14:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/?post_type=campus_story&p=13355"},"modified":"2026-02-09T09:14:34","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T15:14:34","slug":"healthcare-data-meets-ai-in-uw-eau-claire-honors-course","status":"publish","type":"campus_story","link":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/story\/healthcare-data-meets-ai-in-uw-eau-claire-honors-course\/","title":{"rendered":"Healthcare data meets AI in UW-Eau Claire honors course"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Photo<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

When UW-Eau Claire senior Michael Collins saw a new interdisciplinary course offered in the Mark Stephen Cosby Honors College, he was excited to enroll.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among the classes for fall 2025 was the second iteration of Honors 118: Chemical Computing and AI in Healthcare, taught by Dr. Sudeep Bhattacharyay, professor of chemistry and biochemistry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cArtificial intelligence is very relevant to my major and my career goals, so I thought it would be in my wheelhouse,\u201d says the actuarial science major from Jackson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019d had some exposure to AI models during an internship, and big data sets are what my future is going to be about. I plan to work in the insurance industry, more property and casualty over the health insurance lane, but AI modeling is relevant for sure,\u201d Collins says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Collins says he appreciates the way courses in the Cosby Honors College deliver high-level complex topics like AI and machine learning in a way that invites students across many majors to take an interest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s important that all students gain some understanding of AI,\u201d Collins says. \u201cIt will be a part of so many job sectors \u2014 we should all have at least a starting point of understanding how it works and get past the general mystery about it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Delivering on the promise of an honors degree<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"headshot\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Sudeep Bhattacharyay, professor of chemistry and biochemistry at UW-Eau Claire<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bhattacharyay worked with Dr. Heather Fielding, director of the Cosby Honors College, to develop a course on AI designed for science and<\/em> nonscience majors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Modern medicine has become highly reliant upon data, and Bhattacharyay says that AI is increasingly used to provide critical analysis and solutions in areas like genetics, disease tracking and treatment prediction modeling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe advent of \u2018Big Data\u2019 has created significant opportunity to use machines to learn from this data to better predict treatments and, in turn, deliver improved patient outcomes,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe all have a stake in in the future of AI, and healthcare is part of all of our lives,\u201d Bhattacharyay says about the appeal of this course, which counts as a general science liberal education credit for non-STEM majors in the Cosby Honors College.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Heather<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Heather Fielding, director of the Mark Stephen Cosby Honors College at UW-Eau Claire<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fielding says the course has filled to the maximum 26 students both times it has run so far, and it is a chance for honors students at all levels to learn about the chemistry behind the science, and the use of the Bluglold Supercomputing Cluster in analyzing the data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSudeep has managed to make this complex topic accessible to a wide range of students,\u201d Fielding says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur courses all are rooted in a discussion-based pedagogy, so many non-STEM students who might never otherwise take a course from someone like Sudeep are learning this timely topic in a scientific way from one of our leading computational chemistry instructors \u2014 it\u2019s a very rich experience.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Student takeaways for AI in their futures<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

For some students, Bhattacharyay\u2019s dive into AI and healthcare data in Honors 118 builds on previous experience using or general knowledge of AI modeling. This was true for Collins, who says he registered for the class \u201cknowing maybe more about AI than the average student.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Michael_Collins\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Michael Collins, senior actuarial science major from Jackson<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn my summer internship with an insurance firm last year, there was a guy working on a special project merging AI into some of their systems,\u201d Collins says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Collins was able to talk to him about the work quite a bit, observing how machine learning works with big data in insurance, and better understanding how it works in general. He believes that more students need that baseline understanding of AI as they move into many careers in the world today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA lot of students think of AI as just a better search engine than Google,\u201d he says. \u201cIt can work like that, but it\u2019s more important to understand how it learns, how it is pulling and using data, and why it\u2019s wrong sometimes in making predictions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Along with introducing basic functions of machine learning, the class was also designed as a springboard to important discussions about the ethical concerns around artificial intelligence, an aspect of the course Collins says he appreciated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne of the later assignments asked us all to read a paper on CRISPR [an advanced gene-editing technology] and get an idea of what recent technological innovations might mean for the future of possibilities within that field. We were each to pose two questions about hypothetical outcomes,\u201d Collins says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Collins says his group came up with wide-ranging discussions around topics of potential impact from such an AI use case. They touched on government oversight, equality, self-identity, ableism and simply \u201cwhat it means to be human.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bhattacharyay and Fielding both say they were impressed with the critical thinking at work in class sessions like the one Collins describes. It leads, they say, to the exact type of thoughtful considerations needed as AI plays more of a role in higher education and beyond.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are optimistic about the good that AI can do,\u201d Bhattacharyay says. \u201cWe are also cautious about potential negatives, so we look for ways to maintain ability to steer the course.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGiven the data-driven nature of our healthcare system and the foundational chemical science behind it, this course emphasizes the need to uphold ethical standards and critically analyze potential biases in health-related predictions,\u201d Bhattacharyay says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

_______________________________________________________________________________<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Learn more about the Mark Stephen Cosby Honors College<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you have questions about Honors 118: Chemical Computing and AI in Healthcare, contact Dr. Sudeep Bhattacharyay<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Written by UW-Eau Claire<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Link to original story: https:\/\/www.uwec.edu\/stories\/healthcare-data-meets-ai-uw-eau-claire-honors-course<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When UW-Eau Claire senior Michael Collins saw a new interdisciplinary course offered in the Mark Stephen Cosby Honors College, he was excited to enroll. Among the classes for fall 2025 was the second iteration of Honors 118: Chemical Computing and AI in Healthcare, taught by Dr. Sudeep Bhattacharyay, professor of chemistry and biochemistry. \u201cArtificial intelligence […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":13356,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","institution":[96],"story_category":[147,146],"class_list":["post-13355","campus_story","type-campus_story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","institution-uw-eau-claire","story_category-community","story_category-research-innovation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/campus_story\/13355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/campus_story"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/campus_story"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13355"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"institution","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/institution?post=13355"},{"taxonomy":"story_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/story_category?post=13355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}