Martin C. Were, MD, MS, FIAHSI, FACMI, FAMIA
Education
- Bachelor of Arts (AB), Molecular Biology and Biochemistry - Harvard College
- Doctor of Medicine (MD) - Harvard Medical School
- Internal Medicine Residency - Brigham and Women's Hospital / Harvard Medical School
- MS, Clinical Research - Indiana University
- Medical Informatics Fellowship - Regenstrief Institute / Indiana University; National Library of Medicine-sponsored.
Research Information
Biomedical Informatics (including Clinical, Research and Public Health Informatics); Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning; Digital Health and Clinical Decision Support; Implementation Science; Research and Data Infrastructure; Education and Training/Capacity Building; Responsible AI.
Project Countries: Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, Uganda, United States.
Martin C. Were, MD, MS, is a tenured Professor of Biomedical Informatics and Medicine at Vanderbilt Health and core faculty within the Institute for Global Health. He is a board-certified internist and a board-certified clinical informatician with over 20 years of experience developing, implementing and evaluating informatics approaches to improve health outcomes, strengthen health systems and support the research enterprise across sub-Saharan Africa and the United States.
Clinical Informatics Leadership
Dr. Were researches clinical and public health informatics, focusing on electronic health records, health information exchange, decision support, mobile health, data standards and interoperability. He has led trials and evaluations of digital health interventions, informed by his dual roles as clinician and informatician.
He founded mUzima, an open-source mobile health platform extending EHRs to frontline care. mUzima supports offline clinical workflows, data collection, decision support, biometrics and teleconsultation, with implementations across various resource-limited countries. His research includes mHealth approaches for HIV, hypertension and other conditions in Kenya, Rwanda, Mozambique, and Uganda.
Research Informatics
Dr. Were develops informatics infrastructure for clinical and translational research, focusing on integrating diverse clinical data, improving data quality and making health care data research ready.
In the US, he is co-Principal Investigator and informatics leader for the STAR Clinical Research Network within PCORnet. He leads efforts to enhance research intake, broaden data integration, strengthen data quality, support reuse of queries and phenotypes, encourage responsible AI use and foster collaboration across health systems.
Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning
Artificial intelligence and machine learning are key areas in Dr. Were's research. He works on natural language processing, digital diagnostics, AI-enabled clinical measurement and evaluation of AI in health care. Recent projects include using deep learning to predict hemoglobin from eye images and studying data representativeness in health AI/ML models. He is active in NIH Bridge2AI and AIM-AHEAD initiatives.
Education and Capacity Building
Dr. Were has focused on building sustainable biomedical informatics capacity in Africa. He helped establish the Institute of Biomedical Informatics at Moi University (Kenya) and served as Acting Director (2015-2019). He led the HI-TRAIN program and developed graduate-level informatics training in Kenya and Uganda, graduating over 100 students. He has promoted competency development and curriculum harmonization across East Africa and is currently the contact PI for the NIH-supported VM-BMI program.
He has led major informatics programs across sub-Saharan Africa, including as Senior Technical Advisor for Mozambique's HIV health information systems and leader of the USAID-funded PISBIC Kenya program. Dr. Were is committed to mentorship, having supervised 35 master's, doctoral, postdoctoral and clinical investigators in informatics research.
Scholarship and Professional Leadership
Dr. Were has authored more than 100 peer-reviewed publications spanning biomedical and clinical informatics, digital health, clinical decision support, implementation science, AI/ML, health data systems, ethics and equity. His professional service has included membership on the Board of Scientific Counselors of the Lister Hill National Center for Biomedical Communications at the U.S. National Library of Medicine, leadership of the mHealth Alliance Evidence Working Group, and leadership within the Pan-African Health Informatics Association.
He is a Fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics (FACMI), Fellow of the International Academy of Health Sciences Informatics (FIAHSI), and Fellow of the American Medical Informatics Association (FAMIA).