APSA's Technology Committee
Welcome to behind the scenes of APSA's technology infrastructure!
Looking for an opportunity to get involved? Send us an email!
What We Do
Besides just being awesome, the technology committee manages all of APSA's technology infrastructure. Some of the tasks are as simple as email account management while others consist of hosting and maintaining large web applications such as the Residency Wiki Database. The main areas of focus include managing the main website, the annual meeting website, and several physician-scientist-focused databases. Many of these responsibilities involve significant interaction with other committees, including the Public Relations Committee and the Policy Committee.
Ongoing Projects
Main Website
This site is the main public face of APSA displayed to the rest of the world. While the tech committee does not create the majority of the content, we manage the display of information to keep it looking professional in a web environment. The site uses Your Membership as both the content management system and hosting provider; however, it is not without some flair added by the tech committee.
Annual Meeting Website
APSA keeps everyone up to date for its Annual Meeting through this site. Rather than using a content management system, the tech committee hand-engineered it with the help of Bootstrap 3 and jQuery 3 in order to provide users a fantastic experience! We chose simple Github hosting through Github pages to keep the site running seamlessly throughout the event. Recently integrated JSON makes managing the schedule much easier with the site now building most of itself from the data.
Research Residency Database
Acquiring a list of research-friendly residency programs for application is a massive endeavor for every student wanting to pursue a career as a physician-scientist. This mediawiki hosted on a Digital Ocean droplet allows programs to advertise their research-friendly programs while providing students a starting point for making their list of programs to apply to.
Regional Meeting Websites
While some regional meetings choose to host their own website, the tech committee sets up custom, single-page sites for the others and hosts them through Github pages. This approach provides a modern, polished look to each website while employing Your Membership in order to handle all event scheduling, registration, and abstract submission.
Current Committee Members
Muhammad Shamim
Technology Committee Chair
Muhammad Saad Shamim is a third-year MD/PhD student and Paul & Daisy Soros Fellow at the Baylor College of Medicine and Rice University. He received a BS in Computer Science and a BA in Computational & Applied Mathematics and Cognitive Sciences from Rice University. His current research is in Computational Bioengineering and Genomics, specifically 3D interactions within the nucleus (Hi-C). Muhammad served as an APSA Institutional Representative and a Vice-Chair of the Public Relations Committee in the past year, and currently serves as the Technology Chair on the Executive Council.
Tim Kennell Jr.
Technology Committee Co-Chair
Tim Kennell Jr. is currently a sixth year MD/PhD student (GS4) at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). He received his BS in biology and chemistry from the University of North Georgia in 2013. Moving from the wet lab into the silicon lab, he has joined the lab of Dr. James Cimino where he is pursuing a degree in clinical informatics and specifically focusing on alert fatigue in the electronic health record. Previously, he served as the Vice Chair of APSA’s national chapter and the Information Technology Officer of Equal Access Birmingham, his current institution’s free, student-run clinic.
Christopher Sylvester
Technology Committee Vice Chair
Christopher Sylvester is a 4th year MD/PhD at the Baylor College of Medicine and Rice University. He received his BS in Biological Engineering from Louisiana State University. His current research focuses on using three dimensional cell culture to study the how radiation affects the p90-RSK pathway to cause cardiovascular disease. He currently serves a a Vice Chair of the Technology Committee and previously has worked as a student mentor with APSA.
Elliot Ensink
Technology Committee Vice Chair
Elliot Ensink is currently a third year DO-PhD student (MS2) at Michigan State University. He received his BS in Cell and Molecular Biology from Grand Valley State University in 2016. He is pursuing a PhD in Genetics in the lab of Dr. Sophia Lunt. His research focuses on the rewiring of metabolism within cancer cells by utilizing genetic, metabolomic, and bioinformatic techniques. Prior to his graduate research, he investigated the role of glycans in detection of pancreatic cancer by creating bioinformatic tools to assist in fluorescent signal thresholding of tissue micro array images. He currently serves as the Vice Chair of the national APSA technology committee.
Katie Hogan
Technology Committee Member
Katie is a 3rd year MD/PhD student at Baylor College of Medicine and Rice University. She received her BS in Biological Engineering from Louisiana State University. Her current research with Dr. Antonios Mikos involves material development and 3D printing of decellularized cartilage ECM. She currently serves as a Vice Chair of the Technology Committee.