Our Alumnus

Over ninety students have graduated from the Department of Biomedical Informatics (20+ PhD, 50+ MS, 20+ Certificate). The diversity of careers available to DBMI alumnus is evident in their biographies. Many of our graduates are teaching and performing research in academic institutions, such as Vanderbilt University, while others have entered private industry with companies such as Cerner Corporation; some have positions in government agencies, such as the NIH, while others are at major medical centers, serving in roles such as Chief Medical Information Officer.

Each year, Pitt alumni meet at the Annual Meeting of the American Medical Informatics Association for a social gathering. The alumni receive a free subscription to our newsletter, Informatics Today. We maintain a database of the career paths of our graduates. If you are an alumnus, please contact us if you would like to submit or update information!

• Currently: Assistant Professor, Department of Biomedical Informatics; Director, Discovery Systems Laboratory; Vanderbilt University
• 1998: PhD in Intelligent Systems (Biomedical Informatics)
• Publications (links to PubMed)
• Personal Statement: “Having Greg Cooper as an advisor and working on extremely novel computational causal discovery with Bayesian networks methodology shaped my research career. Climbing the hill to upper campus to see Bruce Buchanan was a metaphor; it was like going to see the wise sage on the top of the mountain. I also enjoyed being part of Greg’s remarkable collaboration with Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) ‘giants’ of computational causal discovery – Peter Spirtes, Clark Glymour, and their group. Besides the fantastic faculty and research projects at large, a lot of great students who subsequently highly distinguished themselves also were around, and interactions with them were inspiring and fun. It was an incredible time to be in Pittsburgh.”

Patricia Corby, DDS, MS

• Currently: Assistant Director, Bluestone Center for Clinical Research
  Assistant Professor, Department of Periodontics & Implants, New York University, College of Dentistry
• 8/2002-8/2005: Master's Degree in Biomedical Informatics
• Publications (links to PubMed)
• Personal Statement: “For many years now, I have been working with research in all aspects from basic science to clinical research. My limitation in dealing with many research tasks was the lack in knowledge and skills related to efficiently managing the enormous amount of information gathered during each aspect of research projects. The training program exposed me to a broad biomedical Informatics curriculum, encompassing medical information access and retrieval, medical databases, decision support systems, and computational medicine. This training was so far the most valuable contribution to my career development. I truly believe that Informatics for Clinical Research is fundamental to translation of basic research to medically useful interventions.”

Pedro L. Hernández-Cott, DMD, MS

• Currently: Assistant Professor, Deanship of Research, University of Puerto Rico School of Dentistry
• 7/2003-8/2005: Master's Degree in Biomedical Informatics
• Publications (links to PubMed)
• Curriculum Vitae
• Personal Statement: “After 20 years as a general dentist with an interest in computers, this was an excellent program for aiding me in making the transition in to academia. This is an outstanding program for exposing healthcare professionals, academicians and researchers in how technology is changing and will be used in healthcare for the future. Moreover, it was an opportunity for me to interact with individuals from other ethnic and professional groups. We all gained new knowledge not only in informatics but also personal experiences in cultural awareness, thus developing our own team in ‘dental informatics.’”

Raj K. Krishnaraju PhD, MS

• Currently: Health Scientist Administrator, NIH
• 9/2000-9/2002: Master's Degree in Biomedical Informatics
• Publications (links to PubMed)
• Personal Statement: “Currently, I am working as a Health Scientist Administrator at the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD. My areas of interest are bioinformatics and molecular biology of cell differentiation.”

Deborah A. Lewis, EdD, MPH, MS

• Currently: Associate Professor of Nursing, Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania
• 1999: Masters Degree in Public Health
• 2006: Post-Doctoral Research Fellowship
• Curriculum Vitae (pdf)
• Publications: see CV
• Personal Statement: “The Biomedical Informatics program at the University of Pittsburgh provided me with the opportunity to enhance my knowledge and network with professional colleagues. I have been able to achieve my professional goals due, in large part, to the opportunities provided by this academic program. I have been able to expand my interest in the development of consumer health informatics applications and in my program of research.”

Christopher Mast, MD, MS

• Currently: Assistant Professor; Associate Physician Project Director for the Electronic Medical Record Implementation Project; University of Texas, Galveston
• 2003: Master’s Degree in Biomedical Informatics
• Publications (links to PubMed)
• Personal Statement: “My training in biomedical informatics from Pitt is invaluable, and I use it every day. Clinicians and healthcare leaders are hungry for practical, high quality information on breakthroughs and best practices in our field. Expertise in evaluation is a particularly rare commodity. I also find that knowledge of the organizational literature is extremely useful. My research interests include the factors that influence the effects of clinical system interventions on process and patient outcomes. These are natural extensions of my master’s work at Pitt.”

Ann McKibbon, PhD

• Currently: Associate Professor, Department of Clinical Epidemiology & Biostatistics, McMaster University
• 2005: PhD in Biomedical Informatics
• Publications (links to PubMed)
• Personal Statement: “The people [at Pitt] are what I remember and value the most. Doug Fridsma and Ellen Detlefsen were stellar; without them, I would not have graduated. I remember project group members; new babies; relationships blossoming and souring; sharing rooms at the annual American Medial Informatics Association Annual Symposium; incredible, mind-expanding teachers; and ever-present and knowledgeable staff. Faculty, staff, and students cared deeply for individuals and the program, and we had fun. Thinking back, I want to say thank you, Pitt, and even more, thank you Pitt people.”

Gilan El-Saadawi, MD, PhD, MS

• Currently: Assistant Professor, Department of Health and Community Systems; School of Nursing; Department of Biomedical Informatics, University of Pittsburgh
• 2004: MS in Biomedical Informatics
• Publications (links to PubMed)
• Personal Statement: “I began work in biomedical informatics under the mentorship of James Harrison, MD, PhD, and later received a fellowship in the Pittsburgh Biomedical Informatics Training Program. I also have been mentored by and am currently collaborating with Rebecca Crowley, MD, who helped introduce me to the practical part of the field. The best way to find mentors and collaborators is to express an interest in their work. An established and funded researcher will help to bring you along.”

Matthew Scotch, MPH, PhD

• Currently: Postdoctoral Fellow, Yale Center for Medical Informatics
• 2006: PhD in Biomedical Informatics
• Publications (links to PubMed)
• CV & research information: http://pantheon.yale.edu/~ms2245/
• Personal statement: “I came to the University of Pittsburgh as a PhD student without a direction in this diverse and challenging new field. Four years later, I left the program as a doctor with an expertise in a focused area of public health informatics. One of the strengths of the DBMI program is that the faculty does not treat you as a subordinate, but rather a colleague with the potential to advance the science. This certainly facilitated my relationship with my advisor as well as the other faculty members. The PhD curriculum was rigorous, yet rewarding; I felt the faculty truly cared that I succeed. I am now looking to begin a career as a young independent biomedical informatics scientist, and feel that the skills and knowledge I learned from the DBMI program gave me a tremendous level of confidence that I can make a difference in this field.”

Catherine Arnott Smith, MS, PhD

• Currently: Assistant Professor, School of Library and Information Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison
• 2002: PhD, Library and Information Science, Medical Informatics
  2000: MSIS (Master of Science, Information Science), Medical Informatics
• Publications (links to PubMed)
• Curriculum Vitae (pdf)
• Personal statement: “The five years I spent at DBMI were among the most fulfilling of my life — intellectually and professionally. The lessons I learned — not only through coursework but through exposure to the multiple disciplines that make up medical informatics — remain with me today. I have been a full-time tenure-track academic ever since, am an active participant in medical informatics, and remain committed to integrating multidisciplinary understanding in my research and in my teaching.”

Theodore L. Tsai, MD, MS

• Currently: Staff Physician, University of Pittsburgh Student Health Service;
  Clinical Instructor, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine
• 2001: Master's Degree in Information Science, Medical Informatics Track
• Personal statement: “I learned a lot regarding technology and business in the healthcare setting. The Student Health Service is likely going to be implementing an electronic medical record system and my time in the program will serve me well once the implementation is underway.”