UT HEALTH SERVICES - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Director, Information Technology & Academic Computing
Job Titles:
- Adjunct Assistant Professor / Assistant Vice President, Performance, Measurement Systems and Comparative, Effectiveness Research CHI St. Luke 's Health
Job Titles:
- Dean
- Member of the GSBS Leadership Team
- Dean, MD Anderson UTHealth Houston Graduate School
Jeff Frost, PhD, Associate Dean for Academic and Faculty Affairs, ad interim 713-500-8802 jeffrey.a.frost@uth.tmc.edu
Cherilynn Shadding, PhD, Associate Dean of Graduate Education 713-500-9868 cherilynn.shadding@uth.tmc.edu
Karen Weinberg, Associate Dean for Management ad interim 713-500-9878 karen.weinberg@uth.tmc.edu
Job Titles:
- Director, Early Onset Treatment Program
Job Titles:
- Program Manager, Molecular and Translation Biology and Neuroscience
Job Titles:
- Adjunct Assistant Professor / Assistant Professor, Emergency Medicine
Job Titles:
- Program Manager, Genetics & Epigenetics
Job Titles:
- Legal Staff Member
- Senior Legal Officer
Job Titles:
- Director, Pharmacy Service
Job Titles:
- Coordinator, Admissions and Alumni Affairs
Job Titles:
- Executive Director, Donor Relations and Communications
Job Titles:
- Program Coordinator, Immunology and Quantitative Sciences
Job Titles:
- Healthcare Risk Manager
- Healthcare Risk Specialist
Job Titles:
- Associate Director, Nursing
Job Titles:
- Director, Admission Services
Job Titles:
- President, Houston Texas Exes
Job Titles:
- Chairman, Cizik School of Nursing Advisory Council
Job Titles:
- Adjunct Assistant Professor / Assistant Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences UT Health
Job Titles:
- Member of the Executive Committee
Job Titles:
- Director, Clinical and Management Information Technology
Job Titles:
- Adjunct Assistant Professor / Chief Medical Information Officer
Job Titles:
- Program Coordinator, Microbiology & Infectious Diseases
Job Titles:
- Member of the Executive Committee
- Member of the Membership Committee
Job Titles:
- Director, Social Services
Job Titles:
- Assistant Director, Academic Affairs and Communications
Job Titles:
- Member of the GSBS Leadership Team
- Associate Dean of Graduate Education 713 - 500 - 9868
- Associate Dean, Graduate Education
Job Titles:
- Program Manager, Operations & Student Affairs
Job Titles:
- Assistant Vice President of Development
Job Titles:
- Legal Staff Member
- Senior Legal Officer
Job Titles:
- Legal Staff Member
- Senior Legal Officer and Privacy Officer
Chris Pappas met with Treviño to celebrate him as the first-time recipient of the Maria C. and Christopher J. Pappas VBSN Scholarship award. Their family's intent for the scholarship is to help those who have served our country successfully transition into meaningful civilian work, succeed in their jobs, and fulfill their dreams.
Job Titles:
- Adjunct Assistant Professor / Managing Director, Healthcare Growth Partners
Job Titles:
- Director of Administrative Services
Job Titles:
- Senior Administrative Coordinator, Finance
Job Titles:
- Adjunct Assistant Professor / Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, Section of Critical Care Medicine - Baylor College of Medicine
Job Titles:
- Member of the Membership Committee
Job Titles:
- Member of the Executive Committee
Job Titles:
- Member of the Executive Committee
- Member of the Membership Committee
Job Titles:
- Administrative Coordinator
Job Titles:
- Director IT User Experience and Support Systems and Services
Job Titles:
- Program Coordinator, Cancer Biology and Therapeutics & Pharmacology
Job Titles:
- Vice President, Principal Gifts and Strategic Initiatives
Job Titles:
- Legal Staff Member
- Senior Legal Officer
Job Titles:
- Assistant Professor / Department of Clinical and Health Informatics
- Assistant Professor / Research
- Assistant Professor at McWilliams School of Biomedical Informatics
Dian Hu, PhD is an Assistant Professor at McWilliams School of Biomedical Informatics. He participates in research at the Center for Translational AI Excellence and Applications in Medicine (TEAM-AI), led by Dr. Hongfang Liu. Before joining UTHealth Houston in 2023, Dian was a research fellow at Mayo ADVANCE Lab, an interdisciplinary lab led by Dr. Hongfang Liu in the Department of Artificial Intelligence and Informatics at Mayo Clinic. Dian's primary research interest is to discover, analyze and validate socioeconomic factors behind public health issues using multifarious and non-traditional data sources.
Dian holds a PhD in Systems Engineering from The George Washington University, advised by Dr. David A. Broniatowski. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Dian served as an ORISE Fellow at U.S. Food and Drug Administration while pursuing his Ph.D.
Dian believes that the burden of solving 21st-century public health issues cannot be carried solely by health professionals. On the contrary, entire society should (1) actively identify vulnerable populations and emerging health problems, (2) formulate pragmatic and focused health programs, and (3) monitor, evaluate and modify these programs in a data-driven, democratic and ethical manner.
Tell us about your research center and/or what research you are currently working on?
The Center for Translational AI Excellence and Applications in Medicine (TEAM-AI) focuses on advancing translational sciences in health data science, informatics, and artificial intelligence for medicine and healthcare. The center aims to accelerate the digital transformation of medicine and healthcare through methodology innovation and team science collaboration. Dr. Hu's current research is to establish innovative models and methodologies aiming to evaluate various health initiatives and programs in an interactive fashion.
What type of student or Postdoctoral Fellow are you looking for to work in your center?
Dr. Hu is looking for student or Postdoctoral Fellow who is determined to make a niche but significant breakthrough in health informatics in one of these directions: (1) to improve the cost-effective or certain aspect of performance of an existing state-of-art algorithm that is relevant to health. (2) to design, test and validate a well-known literature motivated health-related hypothesis using innovative data and methodology. (3) to make and test a prototype of toolset with the potential to solve a significant and challenging medical question.
What does the future of your research look like?
I wish my research will provide a comprehensive set of tools, widgets and baselines that will make policy and programs in public health more truthful, transparent and traceable (TTT).
Job Titles:
- Director, Financial Operations
Job Titles:
- Assistant Professor and Associate Director of HEROES
- Assistant Professor at McWilliams School of Biomedical Informatics
- Member of the National Association for Addiction
Dr. Andrea Yatsco is a research-track Assistant Professor at McWilliams School of Biomedical Informatics at UTHealth Houston, formerly UTHealth Houston School of Biomedical Informatics (SBMI). Dr. Yatsco is the Associate Director of the Houston Emergency Opioid Engagement System (HEROES), a national clinical trial providing comprehensive treatment for individuals suffering from Opioid Use Disorder (OUD). The program is a collaborative partnership with the Houston Fire Department, Houston Police Department, Houston Recovery Center, and Memorial Hermann Hospital. Dr. Yatsco handles clinical research and oversight of all direct patient care. Dr. Yatsco also provides support for other grant funded research projects, including the Heroes Helpline for first responders, and application of the HEROES model in other at-risk populations and expansion into extended geographic areas.
Dr. Yatsco's previous work and educational training has focused on behavioral analysis and collaborative interventions for individuals with substance use disorders. Dr. Yatsco received her Doctorate of Philosophy in Criminal Justice from Sam Houston State University. Her undergraduate work at the University of Arizona focused on psychological and sociological predictors of deviant behavior. Dr. Yatsco is an internationally Certified Alcohol and Drug Counselor and a Licensed Chemical Dependency Counselor in Texas. She has worked extensively with justice-involved individuals, and has counseled incarcerated populations in state and county correctional facilities in Massachusetts with an emphasis on continuum of care post-incarceration. She has provided behavioral services and court support to families and adolescent offenders in Vermont. Dr. Yatsco is a previous adjunct professor of Becker College where she taught curriculum in the undergraduate forensic psychology concentration. She also developed grant funded substance education and adolescent development education for Becker's accelerated learning program.
Dr. Yatsco is a member of the National Association for Addiction Professionals (NAADAC), the Texas Association of Addiction professionals (TAAP), and the National Association for Medication Assisted Recovery (NAMA-R). She has published articles in top tiered, peer-reviewed journals, including International Journal of Drug Policy, Drug and Alcohol Dependence, Substance Abuse: Research and Treatment, and the Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment. Dr. Yatsco has presented her research nationally at many prestigious professional conferences in public health, criminal justice, and addiction, including Academy Health (AH), the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences (ACJS), and the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM).
"Access to evidenced-based healthcare and compassionate professionals is vital for those battling the disease of addiction and substance use disorders. A united public health response that educates, reduces stigma, and breaks down silos to form collaborative behavioral interventions is necessary for improved quality of life outcomes," said Yatsco.
Tell us about your research center and/or what research/work you are currently working on?
UT Health Houston - Heroes is a comprehensive care coordination system helping navigate patients through the complex recovery journey based on an understanding of physical and psychological components of substance use, related mental health issues, treatment, and recovery. Community providers share data and provide referrals when individuals meet specific substance use and related mental health criteria. The program provides assertive community outreach, educating on treatment options and helping individuals navigate recovery. The program is comprised of peer recovery specialists, chemical dependency counselors, licensed and clinical social workers, research scientists, research coordinators, doctors, physicians, nurse practitioners, statisticians, academic professors, and data analysts. The Heroes program is a part of UT Health's Center for Health Systems Analytics which houses additional projects including the Heroes Helpline for first responders, a Young Heroes program for adolescents, Family Support services, an Educational Campaign, and the mobile unit Project Integra, a joint initiative with UT Health's Department of Internal Medicine.
What does the future of your research look like?
Current research projects include expanding outreach and resource referrals across the state of Texas as part of the Texas ICON Project, which kicked off in 2023. More information can be found at https://sbmi.uth.edu/cbear/texas-icon.htm
Job Titles:
- Assistant Director, Academic Affairs
- Student Scholarships, Fellowships, and Travel Awards
Job Titles:
- Director, Human Resources
Job Titles:
- Director, Administrative Services
Job Titles:
- President, School of Dentistry Alumni Association
Job Titles:
- Assistant Director, Admissions and Student Affairs
Job Titles:
- Director, Educational Technology
Job Titles:
- Adjunct Assistant Professor / Senior Research Scientist - Eli Lilly and Company
Job Titles:
- Senior Administrative Coordinator, Procurement
Job Titles:
- Director, Laredo Regional Campus
Areas of Expertise
» Biomedical ontologies and knowledge graphs
Job Titles:
- Director, Facilities & Support Services
Job Titles:
- Coordinator of Faculty Affairs
Job Titles:
- President
- President, UTHealth Houston
Job Titles:
- Adjunct Assistant Professor / Principal, AVISOS Partners, LLC
Job Titles:
- Adjunct Associate Professor
Job Titles:
- Systems & Application Specialist I
Job Titles:
- Adjunct Professor / Professor of Biomedical and Data Science
Job Titles:
- Adjunct Assistant Professor / Assistant Professor, Department of Leukemia
Job Titles:
- Adjunct Assistant Professor
Job Titles:
- Video Production Assistant
Job Titles:
- Director of Marketing and Business Development, UTHealth Houston Behavioral Sciences Campus
Job Titles:
- Assistant Dean for Education
Job Titles:
- Adjunct Assistant Professor / Executive Director, Clinical Technology - UT Physicians
Job Titles:
- Adjunct Associate Professor
Job Titles:
- Coordinator, Admissions and Alumni Affairs
Job Titles:
- Member of the Membership Committee
Long time Board Member Jeff Firestone, who oversees the Pierce Runnels Foundation, is partnering with Aanand D. Naik, MD, Executive Director of UTHealth Houston Institute on Aging, to develop an app to help health care providers better understand patients' priorities and enhance age-friendly care.
Job Titles:
- Adjunct Assistant Professor / Assistant Professor, Integrative Biology & Pharmacology
Job Titles:
- Member of the GSBS Leadership Team
- Associate Dean for Academic and Faculty Affairs, Ad Interim 713 - 500 - 8802
Job Titles:
- Adjunct Professor / Assistant Professor - Metropolitan State University of Denver
Job Titles:
- Adjunct Associate Professor / Dean, Florida State University School of Nursing
Job Titles:
- Systems & Application Specialist I
Job Titles:
- Adjunct Professor / Chief Medical Information Officer - CHI St. Luke 's Health
Job Titles:
- Adjunct Professor / Associate Vice President for Research
Job Titles:
- Member of the Leadership Team
Job Titles:
- Adjunct Professor / Former Senior VP - Cerner
Job Titles:
- Adjunct Professor / Associate Professor, Obstetrics & Gynecology
Job Titles:
- Adjunct Professor / Regional
Job Titles:
- Director of Special Projects
Job Titles:
- Legal Staff Member
- Senior Legal Officer
Job Titles:
- Member of the GSBS Leadership Team
- Associate Dean for Management Ad Interim 713 - 500 - 9878
- Associate Dean for Management, Ad Interim
Job Titles:
- Administrative Coordinator
- Administrative Staff Member
Job Titles:
- Academic Achievement Coordinator
Job Titles:
- Adjunct Assistant Professor / Director - Cancer Registry, MD Anderson Cancer Center
Job Titles:
- Executive Leadership Team
- Senior Vice President, Development and Public Affairs, UTHealth Houston
Job Titles:
- Member of the Executive Committee
Job Titles:
- Director of Forensic Services
Job Titles:
- Adjunct Associate Professor
Job Titles:
- Administrative Staff Member
- Senior Administrative Manager
Areas of Expertise
» Natural Language Processing
Job Titles:
- Member of the Leadership Team
Job Titles:
- Senior Director, Board Engagement and Leadership Volunteer Programs
Job Titles:
- Manager, Grants & Contracts Specialist
Job Titles:
- Executive Director, Development Operations
Areas of Expertise
» Information extraction and data mining
Job Titles:
- Manager, Marketing & Creative Services
Job Titles:
- Chairman Emeritus of the Life
Job Titles:
- Chairman - Elect
- Chairman of the Executive Committee
- Chairman of the Membership Committee
Job Titles:
- Member of the Membership Committee
Job Titles:
- Administrative Coordinator
Job Titles:
- Adjunct Associate Professor / Associate Professor, Department of Pathology - UT MD Anderson Cancer Center
Job Titles:
- Adjunct Associate Professor / Associate Professor of Clinical Medicine, Houston Methodist Academic Institute
Job Titles:
- Adjunct Assistant Professor
Job Titles:
- Senior Administrative Assistant
Job Titles:
- MDACC Senior Academic Coordinator
Job Titles:
- Chief Legal Officer
- Senior Vice President
Job Titles:
- Legal Staff Member
- Managing Legal Officer
Job Titles:
- Systems & Applications Specialist
Job Titles:
- Systems & Application Specialist II
Job Titles:
- Administrative Coordinator
- Administrative Staff Member
Areas of Expertise
» Machine Learning and Deep Learning
Job Titles:
- Coordinator, Academic Admissions
Job Titles:
- Adjunct Assistant Professor / Assistant Professor, Department of Information Science, University of North Texas
Job Titles:
- Member of the Membership Committee
Job Titles:
- Assistant Director, Academic Affairs
Job Titles:
- Senior Analyst, Data Management
Job Titles:
- Adjunct Assistant Professor / Assistant Professor, Department of Emergency Medicine
Job Titles:
- Assistant Professor
- Assistant Professor / Department of Health
Omer Anjum, PhD joined McWilliams School of Biomedical Informatics at UTHealth Houston, formerly UTHealth Houston School of Biomedical Informatics (SBMI) in December of 2021 after five years of post-doctoral research in Artificial Intelligent (AI) system design, Natural Language Processing and High Performance Computing, conducted at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in collaboration with IBM. Omer has also worked in the industry for several years. He earned his PhD in Computing and Electrical Engineering from Tampere University of Technology (TUT), Finland, in 2014, after completing his Master of Science degree (with honors) in Information Technology from TUT, Finland, in 2007.
Omer's research and development experience is interdisciplinary. For the past few years, he has been developing end-to-end AI systems covering a range of use cases including recommender systems, a search engine for personal conversations, and healthcare. The backend for each of these systems has tens of micro-services / AI and other components that interact with each other in different ways to solve real-life challenging problems. Omer has also been developing new NLP algorithms and improving existing algorithms to meet end-user expectations. He has also written award-winning, peer-reviewed papers.
Education
MS (Honors), Information Technology, Tampere University of Technology, Finland (2007)
PhD, Computing and Electrical Engineering, Tampere University of Technology, Finland (2014)
Areas of Expertise
Natural Language Processing
Job Titles:
- Program Manager, Admissions
Areas of Expertise
» Health IT and clinical decision making
Job Titles:
- Anderson Hospital President
Job Titles:
- Director, Clinical Performance Improvement
Job Titles:
- Member of the Membership Committee
Job Titles:
- Assistant Dean, MD Anderson
- Professor
- Regular Member
Job Titles:
- Chairman of the Executive Committee
- Member of the Membership Committee
- Chairman, UTHealth Houston Development Board
Job Titles:
- Director, Student Affairs and Career Development
Job Titles:
- Senior Vice President for Clinical and Faculty Affairs
Areas of Expertise
» Applied Population Health Analytics
Job Titles:
- Adjunct Professor / Professor and Chair
Job Titles:
- Director of Patient Revenue Cycle
Job Titles:
- Chairman Emeritus of the Life
Job Titles:
- Adjunct Associate Professor / Associate Professor - UT Health School of Public
Job Titles:
- Associate Dean for Management
Job Titles:
- Adjunct Professor / Chief Medical Information Officer - Ambulatory & Population Health at Memorial Hermann Health System
Areas of Expertise
» Computational Systems Biology
Job Titles:
- Adjunct Associate Professor / Director and Chief
Job Titles:
- Assistant
- Senior Executive
Job Titles:
- Adjunct Professor / Professor in Vascular Neurology, Frank M. Yatsu, MD Chair in Neurology, Director, UTHealth Institute for Stroke and Cerebrovascular Diseases
Job Titles:
- Adjunct Assistant Professor / Assistant Professor of Data Science - San Jose State University, California
Job Titles:
- Adjunct Professor / Professor - Rheumatology and Clinical Immunogenetics, UT
Job Titles:
- Adjunct Associate Professor / Associate Professor, Nursing and Medical Care - Keio University, Japan
Job Titles:
- Marketing & Generative Artificial Intelligence Assistant
Job Titles:
- Adjunct Assistant Professor
Job Titles:
- Vice President, Business Development and Government Relations, UTHealth Houston
Job Titles:
- Adjunct Professor / Professor and Department Chair, Systems Medicine and Bioengineering - Houston Methodist Research Institute
Job Titles:
- Adjunct Associate Professor / Head of Research, Tibyan AI
Job Titles:
- Adjunct Professor / Associate Professor of Biomedical Informatics, Institute of Translational Sciences - UT Medical Branch - Galveston
Job Titles:
- Senior Administrative Manager
Job Titles:
- Director, Performance Improvement, Business Intelligence, and Reporting
Job Titles:
- Manager, Distance Education
Job Titles:
- Computer Scientist
- Associate Professor and Assistant Dean of Education / Department of Health
- Associate Professor and Assistant Dean of Education Informatics
Areas of Expertise
» Precision Education and Innovations
Toufeeq Ahmed Syed, PhD is an Associate Professor and Assistant Dean of Education Informatics at McWilliams School of Biomedical Informatics at UTHealth Houston. He is also an Associate Professor at McGovern Medical School at UTHealth Houston. Before joining UTHealth in 2023, he was Assistant Professor of Biomedical Informatics at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.
Dr. Syed has more than a decade of experience serving in Informatics and Artificial Intelligence leadership roles: He was Chief Technology Officer for an NSF-funded AI startup, Founding Director and Executive Director at Health IT at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, and Assistant Dean of Education Informatics for Vanderbilt University School of Medicine and has developed many innovative technology platforms including VSTAR, QuizTime, TurnOut, and Spark. He has over 15 years of experience developing national online platforms. He actively leads education informatics research and innovations and is active in national and international medical education technology and data standards committees.
Dr. Syed is a computer scientist by training with expertise in Artificial Intelligence, education technology, social network analysis, student portfolio systems, natural language processing, information retrieval, data integration, ontologies, and adaptive recommender systems. He has more than twenty-eight peer-reviewed publications in the above research areas. He held the prestigious National Library of Medicine's post-doctoral fellowship from 2010 to 2012 and was awarded Arizona State University's Challenges Innovator Award 2010 for his Ph.D. dissertation work. He gave an invited TED Talk at TEDx Phoenix 2010 on Artificial Intelligence and Natural Language Processing.
Syed Lab is leading Precision Education in Healthcare and Mentoring Networks research by developing innovative AI-based national online platforms (National Research Mentoring Network, AIM-AHEAD Connect) to deliver personalized education, mentoring, and career growth, thereby enabling intervention-based research and increasing the nation's biomedical and Artificial Intelligence workforce.
Education
National Library of Medicine Post-Doctoral Fellowship - Biomedical Informatics, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, 2010-2012
PhD - Computer Science, Arizona State University, 2010
MS - Computer Science, Arizona State University, 2005
Bachelor of Engineering - Computer Science and Engineering, Osmania University, India, 2002
Research Interests
Precision Education and Innovations
Education Informatics and Technology
Online platforms and Cloud based technology development
Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and NLP
Digital Learning and Personalized Curriculum Innovations
Search, Recommendation, and AI-based Learning Technologies
Job Titles:
- Director, Health Information Management Management
Job Titles:
- Member of the Executive Committee
- Member of the Membership Committee
Job Titles:
- Adjunct Professor / Professor, Department of Sarcoma Medical Oncology - MD Anderson Cancer Center
Job Titles:
- Chairman of the Executive Committee
- Immediate past Chair
- Member of the Membership Committee
Job Titles:
- Associate Dean for Admissions and Student Affairs
Job Titles:
- Member of the Membership Committee
Job Titles:
- Adjunct Associate Professor
Job Titles:
- Legal Staff Member
- Senior Legal Officer
Job Titles:
- Adjunct Professor / Visiting Professor, Department of Anesthesiology
Job Titles:
- Adjunct Assistant Professor
Areas of Expertise
» Tissue/Cell type specificity in complex disease: methods and applications