If you’re seeking informatics experts to learn from, you’ll soon find that many of those experts are professors or former professors who are involved with activities outside their ivy-covered walls. The following 17 informatics experts worth listening to are executive directors, award winners and entrepreneurs. In addition, many of them remain professors at various universities and colleges.
The following list is categorized alphabetically by surname.
Suzanne Bakken, RN, DNSc, FAAN, FACMI, is professor of nursing and medical informatics at Columbia University. Her work has focused on informatics, or the application of computer and information science to nursing care, particularly in the area of AIDS. Bakken is a fellow of the American Academy of Nursing as well as the American College of Medical Informatics. A winner of numerous awards, she also is a member of the American College of Medical Informatics.
Professor Fred H. Cate is a distinguished professor and C. Ben Dutton Professor of Law at the Indiana University School of Law-Bloomington and director of the Indiana University Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research. He is an author and specializes in privacy, security, and other information law issues, and appears regularly before Congress, government agencies, and professional and industry groups on these matters.
Professor Hsinchun Chen is McClelland Professor of Management Information Systems at the University of Arizona and founding director of the University’s Artificial Intelligence Lab and Hoffman E-Commerce Lab. He has received numerous awards in information technology and knowledge management, including the AT&T Foundation Award, the SAP Award and the University of Arizona Technology Innovation Award.
Jake Yue Chen, PhD, is an associate professor at the IU School of Informatics at IUPUI (Indiana University-Perdue University Indianapolis) and director of the Indiana Center for Systems Biology and Personalized Medicine, a research Signature Center of IUPUI. Chen and fellow committee members were asked this year to assist the FDA in identifying core elements, priorities and strategic approaches necessary to build sustainable regulatory systems in approximately 150 low- and middle-income countries categorized as “developing.”
Don E. Detmer, MD, MA, is senior advisor and immediate past President and Chief Executive Officer of the American Medical Informatics Association. He also is Professor Emeritus and Professor of Medical Education at the University of Virginia and Visiting Professor at CHIME, University College of London. Considered to be a mover of the US National Health Information Infrastructure, Dr. Detmer has also been a consultant to the government of England and the Hospital Authority of Hong Kong.
Dr. Daniel R. Masys is a professor of biomedical informatics and medicine, and chair of biomedical informatics at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville. Dr. Masys is a Fellow and Past President of the American College of Medical Informatics. He is a founding associate editor of the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, and has received numerous awards including the NIH Director’s Award, Public Health Service Oustanding Service Medal, and the US Surgeon General’s Exemplary Service Medal.
Robert Mayes, former senior advisor on health information technology issues at the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) Health Information Technology Program, now serves as the executive director for Global Health Informatics Partnership (GHIP). Mayes also is a registered nurse with clinical experience in both acute care and community nursing. He holds degrees in anthropology, nursing, and nursing informatics.
William T. Oravecz is Managing Partner of WTO Associates LLC and Chief Analyst for HITECH Answers. Mr. Oravecz has developed a program management practice focused on effective implementation and support of the various facets of healthcare IT initiatives, including EHR selection/implementation strategy, planning and management, Healthcare Information Security audit and certification compliance, HIPAA 5010 and ICD-10-CM/PCS transition/compliance.
Dr. Andras Pellionisz is a recognized expert in the field of genome informatics specializing in the geometrization of biology, which he applied first in neuroscience to produce industrial neural net applications and later in genomics, manifesting today in applications for personal genomes. He has 45 years of experience in informatics of neural and genomic systems spanning academia, government and Silicon Valley industry.
Professor Krishna Rajan is the Director of the Institute for Combinatorial Discovery at Iowa State University. He is holds appointments in the Department of Materials Science & Engineering and the Bioinformatics and Computational Biology Program. Dr. Rajan is recognized as one of the world’s leading authorities on the development and use of informatics, statistical learning and combinatorial discovery methods for the development, design and characterization of materials.
Edward H. Shortliffe, MD, PhD, MACP, FACMI, is President and CEO, American Medical Informatics Association and professor, School of Biomedical Informatics, University of Texas Health Sciences Center at Houston. Dr. Shortliffe is a pioneer in the use of artificial intelligence in medicine, and is the author of more than 300 publications including seven books, one of which (Biomedical Informatics, now in its third edition) is considered the leading textbook in the field.
Greer W.P. Stevenson, PhD, MBA, MPH worked as a data communications manager and security officer for 15 years in the U.S. Air Force. Dr. Stevenson served as a systems analyst for Centegra Health System, still an immense northern Illinois health care systems with 3,100 associates and 450 physicians in more than 30 sites. At UIC, Dr. Stevenson is a member of an interdisciplinary security advisory board and actively advises the College of Applied Health Sciences on policies related to HIPAA compliance.
Dr. Jon Altuna Urdin is a specialist expert in business informatics, specialist teacher in physical education and has a degree in educational psychology. Currently, Dr. Altuna is acting lecturer, besides being lecturer in Therapeutic Child Education in the Basque Public Education System. His recent dissertation is entitled, Incorporation of Internet into the teaching of the subject Knowledge of the Environment during the third cycle of Primary Education: possibilities and analysis of the situation of a school.
Professor Peter Willett is the head of Department of Information Studies at the University of Sheffield and is one of the well-known researchers in information retrieval (IR) in general and chemoinformatics in particular. He is the recipient of the Distinguished Lecturer Award of the New Jersey Chapter of the American Society for Information Science (1997), of the Tony Kent Strix Award of the Institute of Information Scientists (2001) and many other awards.
Robert W. Williams, PhD, is a professor in the Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology and Center for Neuroscience, University of Tennessee Health Science Center and leader of the Mouse Brain Library / Gene Network and chair of Society for Neuroscience Neuroinformatics Committee. This latter committee “serves as an honest broker to facilitate awareness of neuroinformatics resources, promote data sharing, and encourage development of common neuroscience terminologies.”
Professor Jeremy Wyatt is Director of the new Institute for Digital Health Care, professor of eHealth Innovation in Warwick University and visiting professor in Medical Informatics in Amsterdam and Porto. Jeremy enjoys demystifying health informatics and has written article series for the Lancet, BMJ and JRSM, the ABC of Health Informatics (Blackwells, 2006) and a handbook on clinical knowledge in practice (RSM Press, 2001).
Peter Yellowlees, MD, is a professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences in the UC Davis School of Medicine and one of the world’s leading experts on the use of telemedicine and psychiatry. He recently was appointed to the board of directors of Cal eConnect, a new nonprofit entity established by the state of California to provide leadership and direction for the development of a statewide healthcare information exchange process.
