Noémie Elhadad, PhD Appointed Vice Dean for AI Initiatives

Dear Colleagues,

I write to share the wonderful news that Noémie Elhadad, PhD, associate professor and chair of the Department of Biomedical Informatics (DBMI) at Columbia University, has been appointed vice dean for artificial intelligence initiatives at the Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons.

In this role, Dr. Elhadad will lead VP&S’s strategic vision for artificial intelligence, including engaging with academic, clinical, industry, governmental, and philanthropic partners to advance the responsible and innovative use of AI across research, education, clinical care, and operations. She will work closely with departments to coordinate AI-related initiatives and serve as a key representative of VP&S in broader university and medical center AI planning to integrate the translation of AI-driven discovery into education, research, and patient care.

A respected thought leader in the AI space, Dr. Elhadad leads the AI@VP&S Initiative. She also serves as director of medical information services at NewYork-Presbyterian and is affiliated with Columbia's Department of Computer Science and the Columbia Data Science Institute. Dr. Elhadad’s research is at the intersection of artificial intelligence, human-centered computing, and medicine, with a focus on developing novel machine-learning methods. The tools she designs support patients and clinicians in their information needs, with particular focus on ensuring that AI systems of the future are safe, effective, and advance medicine. In her work in women’s health, she has generated novel disease insights through large-scale community engagement and novel machine learning methods of health data. She is the recipient of the Donald Lindberg Award for Innovation in Informatics from the American Medical Informatics Association.

Dr. Elhadad joined DBMI in 2007 and was appointed chair in 2023. She previously served as vice chair for research at DBMI, director of the department’s graduate program, and as interim chair in 2019. Dr. Elhadad served as inaugural chair of the Health Analytics Center at the Columbia Data Science Institute from 2013 to 2016. She obtained her PhD in computer science at Columbia, focusing on natural language processing of biomedical and clinical texts. Under her leadership, DBMI has been at the forefront of AI’s impact on patient care and biomedical knowledge discovery, leading fundamental research on AI and developing programs to educate a wide array of learners in health-related AI.

Please join me in congratulating Dr. Elhadad on her new role.

All my best,

Katrina Armstrong, MD

Dean of the Faculties of Health Sciences and the Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons
Executive Vice President for Health and Biomedical Sciences, Columbia University