After completing her PhD in Medicinal Chemistry at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, NC, in 2012, Leigh Ann spent two years with Vanderbilt as a post-doctoral fellow in clinical pharmacology before taking a position as a research and development chemist for the CDC in Atlanta. Returning to Nashville once again, she first worked as a research scientist for Aegis before returning to VUMC in 2020 as a Senior Project Manager in VICTR. Leigh Ann joined DBMI in January 2024 as a Senior IT Project Manager. 

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Ketan Jadhav is a data professional who helps organizations bridge the gap between data and decisions. He received his Master's degree in Analytics from Northeastern University and has a Bachelor of Engineering degree in Computer Technology. Prior to joining Vanderbilt University Medical Center, he worked at various global and regional firms in biomedical, IT, and finance industries. 

GitHub: https://github.com/ketanmj

Dr. James Cimino became the inaugural director of the Informatics Institute at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) in 2015 and then inaugural chair of the Department of Biomedical Informatics and Data Science in 2024. Prior to UAB, he was on faculty in Biomedical Informatics and Medicine at Columbia University for 20 years, followed by 7 years as Director of the Laboratory for Informatics Development at the NIH Clinical Center and the National Library of Medicine. He is Fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics and the American College of Physicians, a member of the National Academy of Medicine, and winner of the American Medical Informatics Association’s Morris F. Collen Award for Excellence. He was appointed Adjoint Professor of Biomedical Informatics at Vanderbilt University Medical Center on November 1, 2023. 

Research interests: Medical concept representation, controlled vocabulary, biomedical informatics, medical decision making
UAB Email: jamescimino@uabmc.edu

Dr. Tkaczyk is a graduate of the MD/PhD program at the University of Michigan. He has a PhD in electrical engineering under the pedigree of Nobel Laureate Gerard Mourou. Dr. Tkaczyk's post-doctoral training in medical device design at the University of Tartu Institute of Physics was supported by the Fullbright and Whitaker awards. He is active in the leadership of several conferences and international working groups related to artificial intelligence and dermatologic imaging technologies. 

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http://www.VDTRC.org

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Jessica Buckner is a Nurse Informatics Data Analyst with 10 years of nursing experience in various clinical settings. She began her nursing career in 2012 working in Long Term Care/Skilled Nursing, and in 2016 transitioned to Operating Room nursing becoming a team leader. Since 2019, Jessica has worked as a Utilization Review nurse, initially for an insurance payor conducting chart reviews for medical necessity of inpatient hospital admission. She became a travel Utilization Review nurse in 2021 and assisted various hospitals with chart review, payor communication, workflow creation, and EHR implementation. She obtained her PN from Tennessee College of Applied Technology, her BSN from University of Tennessee at Martin, and is currently pursuing her MSN degree in Nursing Informatics at Vanderbilt University School of Nursing. She received her Doctor of Nursing Practice and Post-Masters Certificate in Nursing Education in December 2024.

Michael is a clinical informatics nurse with over ten years of informatics experience in roles ranging from analyst to product manager.  His prior focus has been in translational informatics where he has created clinical decision support tools for clinicians at VUMC. Currently, he is tasked with improving usability of VA data for research and supporting DBMI research projects.