Recruitment of a new director for the Penn Institute for Biomedical Informatics

09/17/21

We write to initiate the internal search for a new director for the Penn Institute for Biomedical Informatics (IBI) at the University of Pennsylvania.

The IBI was established in 2015 to develop, advance, and support interdisciplinary education, research, and infrastructure in biomedical informatics including bioinformatics, clinical informatics, clinical research informatics, consumer health informatics, public health informatics, and translational bioinformatics. The IBI consists of more than 70 highly interdisciplinary research laboratories spanning multiple disciplines and is home to education programs, research centers, and informatics core facilities.

The mission of the IBI is to facilitate transdisciplinary collaborations among faculty, staff, and students with expertise in biology, medicine, dentistry, nursing, veterinary medicine, computer and information science, and the management and social sciences. Through its programs and services, IBI:

  • Develops innovative computational methods for artificial intelligence, data integration, data mining, machine learning, and natural language processing.
  • Facilitates the retrieval and integration of clinical, basic science, population, and health outcomes data to generate new ideas and accelerate discovery.
  • Serves as a nexus for education, training, and outreach in biomedical informatics for students, staff, and faculty.
  • Builds and supports cutting edge computational infrastructure to enable education, research, and clinical translation.
  • Advances Penn Medicine as a learning health system.

The Director is responsible for establishing the goals and objectives of the IBI, including all academic, research, and operational aspects.  The Director will enable access by researchers across campus to cutting-edge informatics tools and biomedical data, promote collaboration among investigators in the analyses and utilization of biomedical data to enhance discovery, and lead efforts in the application of biomedical data to enhance precision medicine and translational science.

Applicants for the position must hold an MD and/or PhD degree and qualify for faculty appointment as Associate or full Professor in the Standing Faculty of the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.  Qualified candidates should have outstanding leadership attributes, embrace diversity and reflect inclusivity in the broadest sense, and demonstrate a commitment to foster the exceptional research endeavors of the IBI.  The Director will be appointed by and report to the Dean of the Perelman School of Medicine and partner closely with the Executive Vice Dean and Chief Scientific Officer (EVD/CSO).  The role will include an administrative stipend.

Individuals who are interested in applying for this position should submit a CV and a brief (one-page) statement describing a programmatic vision by October 1.  Please forward all application materials directly to the Office of the Executive Vice Dean and Chief Scientific Officer at evdcso@pennmedicine.upenn.edu.

The selection committee, advisory to the Dean, will be chaired by Dan Rader, and will include: Sharlene Day, Michael Feldman, Rebecca Hubbard, Katherine Nathanson, Jennifer Phillips-Cremins, Lyle Ungar, Benjamin Voight, and Yi Xing.

Thank you for your attention to this important institutional opportunity.

J. Larry Jameson, MD, PhD, Dean

and

Jon Epstein, MD, Executive Vice Dean and Chief Scientific Officer