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THE BIOMEDICAL INFORMATICS RESEARCHER

Dr. Bright is a Research Scientist II and the Co-Director for the Center for Artificial Intelligence (AI) Research and Education in the Department of Computational Biomedicine at Cedars-Sinai. In this role, she maintains and builds strong relationships with internal and external collaborators with a focus on AI research, collaboration, software development, education, training, and clinical application. Dr. Bright started her journey in informatics in the early 2000s; as one of the few Black women in informatics and data science, she has built a career spanning academia, public health, government, and industry that sought to examine and dismantle healthcare inequalities in the informatics and data science workforce, data, and computer reasoning systems.

Profile

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Dr. Bright’s industry experience includes a position as the Biomedical Informatics Evaluation Team Lead for the Center for AI, Research, and Evaluation at IBM Watson Health. There, she provided scientific expertise and leadership in the design, development, and evaluation of IBM Watson Health solutions. As the Qualitative Team Lead and Design Team Liaison for the Center, Dr. Bright managed global scientific activities and research studies in collaboration with academic, non-profit, and client partners. Dr. Bright also launched a 10-year, $25 million research collaboration between IBM Watson Health and Vanderbilt University Medical Center to advance the science of AI in healthcare. Dr. Bright used her data science expertise and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) skillset to apply an equity-centered framework in the research projects she was leading or collaborating. 

 

Dr. Bright’s academic experiences include positions at Washington University in St. Louis, Duke University, and Columbia University.  As an Instructor in the Department of Medicine at Washington University in St. Louis, Dr. Bright established an extramurally funded research program, helped develop a new training and internship program, and pursued graduate teaching opportunities. As the Director of Informatics Development in the Institute of Informatics, she managed and evaluated strategic initiatives in the institute and served as a liaison with stakeholders to achieve business objectives. As a postdoctoral associate in the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health at Duke University, Dr. Bright served as the lead investigator of an Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) Evidence-based Practice Center task order assessing the clinical decision support (CDS) evidence. At Columbia University, Dr. Bright worked as a postdoctoral associate and performed data analysis on a comparative effectiveness research project examining hypertension care and population outcomes. During her doctoral training at Columbia, she applied novel approaches to develop an antimicrobial-microorganism ontology-based CDS system to support judicious antibiotic prescribing.

 

Dr. Bright’s public health experiences include positions at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. As the Director of Medical Informatics, Surveillance, & Epidemiology in the Division of HealthCare Access, Correctional Health Services (CHS), she  analyzed CHS Electronic Health Record (EHR) data, authored reports, and made policy recommendations for clinical improvement, as well as for improving data collection, and reporting for program monitoring. As a Clinical Liaison/Quality Improvement (QI) Advisor in the Division of HealthCare Access, Primary Care Information Project, Dr. Bright employed the EHR as a tool to drive preventive services for patients in small primary care practices and Community Health Centers. 

 

Dr. Bright’s government experience includes a position as a Senior Staff Fellow in the Division of Health Information Technology, Center for Evidence and Practice Improvement at AHRQ. She focused on translation, dissemination, and communication sciences research targeting patients and their healthcare providers to better understand the prevention, treatment, and care options available to make informed healthcare decisions leading to improved healthcare outcomes.

 

Dr. Bright is the first Black woman to earn a doctorate in biomedical informatics within the United States and the first Black student to earn a doctorate in this field from Columbia University. As such, she uses her platform and work to advance DEI in informatics and the data science space through local and national initiatives. In addition to speaking with students about the importance of diversity in science, Dr. Bright works with organizations to create diverse and inclusive environments. Dr. Bright was the founding Chair of the the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee and is a member of the Women in AMIA steering committee, where she established the AMIA First Look Scholarship Program in 2017.

Select Invited Presentations

  • Women in AMIA Town Hall. AMIA leaders discuss the recent U.S. Supreme Court Ruling, Dobbs v. Jackson (August 31, 2022), Virtual

  • 13th ACM Conference on Bioinformatics, Computational Biology, & Health Informatics, Keynote Speaker: The Importance of Workforce Diversity in Informatics (August 9, 2022), Chicago, IL

  • Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center Beyond Academia Career Event Panel (July 13, 2022), Virtual

  • Howard University Doctoral Career Pathways Conference 2022: Data Science Panel (April 1, 2022), Virtual

  • William & Mary Career Development & Professional Engagement Tech Trek: Atlanta (March 31, 2022), Virtual

  • NLM Training Conference Health Equity, Technology, and the Role of Biomedical Informatics Panel. Bringing Equity and Inclusion into Informatics (June 21, 2021), Virtual

  • University of Pennsylvania Institute for Biomedical Informatics Seminar. A Framework for Evaluation of Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare (June 10, 2021), Virtual

  • AMIA Virtual Annual Symposium. Moving Beyond Performative Action: Getting Real About Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (November 16, 2020), Virtual

  • Symposium on Artificial Intelligence for Learning Health Systems Virtual Presymposium. Panel 2 - New frontiers in healthcare AI (October 21, 2020), Virtual

  • SIM Women. Intersectionality: Get to know me (September 30, 2020), Virtual

  • 2020 ACM Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing Conference. Charting Your Informatics Career Plan: Pathways Toward Careers in Biomedical Informatics (September 16-19, 2020), Virtual

  • IBM Watson Health Achieve Equity Seminar. Introduction to Health Equity and Covid-19 Disparities (May 19, 2020), Virtual

  • Women in AMIA Podcast presents: The “XX-Men of AMIA” Live Podcast Event  (November 18, 2019), Washington DC

  • 2019 ACM Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing Conference. Building Connections Between Computation and Health: Medical Informatics (September 20, 2019), San Diego, CA

  • Stayin’ Alive In Tech Podcast. Tiffani Bright Girl on Fire (June 6, 2019)

  • NSBE’s 45th Annual Convention. Does A Career Like This Sound Appealing to You Too: People + Data+ Technology = Informatics (March 29, 2019), Detroit, MI

  • AMIA Why Informatics Podcasts: Women in AMIA: Episode 5- Dr. Tiffani Bright’s Career Path (Jan 1, 2019), Virtual

PEER-REVIEWED ARTICLES ​

• Bright TJ, William KS, Rajamani S, Tiase VL, et al. Making the Case for Workforce Diversity in Biomedical Informatics to Help Achieve Equity-Centered Care: A Look at the AMIA First Look Program. J Am Med Inform Assoc 2022; 29 (1):171-175.

• Johnson KB, Bright TJ, Clark CR. Overview of the Issue. JHCPU. 2021 32(2), 1-4.

• Rizvi R, Van Houten C, Bright TJ, McKillop MM, Alevy S, Brotman D, Sands-Lincoln M, Snowdon J, Robinson B, Staats C, Jackson GP, and Kassler WJ. Perceived Impact and Usability of a Care Management and Coordination System in Delivering Services to Vulnerable Populations – A mixed Methods Study. J Med Internet Res 2021;23(3):e24122 doi: 10.2196/24122 PMID: 33709928.

• Sieck CJ, Pearl N, Bright TJ, Yen PY. A qualitative study of physician perspectives on adaptation to electronic health records. BMC Med Inform Decis Mak. 2020 Feb 10;20(1):25. doi: 10.1186/s12911-020-1030-6. PubMed PMID: 32039728;

PubMed Central PMCID: PMC7008538.

• Bright TJ. Transforming user needs into functional requirements for an antibiotic clinical decision support system: explicating content analysis for system design. Appl Clin Inform. 2013 Dec 25;4(4):618-35. PMCID: PMC3885919.

• Bright TJ, Wong A, Dhurjati R, Bristow E, Bastian L, Coeytaux RR, Samsa G, Hasselbad V, Williams JW, Musty MD, Wing ME, Kendrick AS, Sanders GD, Lobach D. Effect of Clinical Decision-Support Systems: A Systematic Review. Annals of Internal Medicine. 2012 Jul;157(1):29- 43. PMID: 22751758.

• Bright, TJ, Yoko Furuya, E, Kuperman, GJ, Cimino, JJ, Bakken, S. Development and evaluation of an ontology for guiding appropriate antibiotic prescribing. J Biomed Inform. 2012 Feb;45(1):120-28. PMCID: PMC3272092

• Johnson SB, Bakken S, Dine D, Hyun S, Mendonça E, Morrison F, Bright T, Van Vleck T, Wrenn J, Stetson P. An electronic health record based on structured narrative. J Am Med Inform Assoc. 2008 Jan-Feb;15(1):54-64. PMCID: PMC2274868

• Becker KG, Hosack DA, Dennis G, Lempicki RA, Bright TJ, Cheadle C, Engel J. PubMatrix: a tool for multiplex literature mining. BMC Bioinformatics. 2003 Dec 10;4:61. PMCID: PMC317283.

BLOGS, LETTERS, AND REPORTS

•Sherman B, Dankwa-Mullan, I, Karunakaram H, Kamin L, Bright, TJ, Rhee K. Race And Ethnicity Must Be Included In Employee Health Data Analyses. Health Affairs Blog, December 21, 2020. DOI: 10.1377/hblog20201217.850341

• Lobach D, Sanders GD, Bright TJ, Wong A, Dhurjati R, Bristow E, Bastian L, Coeytaux R, Samsa G, Hasselblad V, Williams JW, Wing L, Musty M, Kendrick AS. Enabling Health Care Decisionmaking Through Clinical Decision Support and Knowledge Management. Evidence Report No. 203. (Prepared by the Duke Evidence-based Practice Center under Contract No. 290-2007-10066-I.) AHRQ Publication No. 12-E001-EF. Rockville, MD: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. April 2012.

• Becker KG, Barnes KC, Bright TJ, Wang SA. The genetic association database. Nat Genet. 2004 May; 36(5):431-2.
 

PEER-REVIEWED PROCEEDINGS PAPERS

• Abujarad F, Doerr M, Meyer MN, Kraft SA, Bright TJ. Technology. Informed Consent, and Genomic Research: Powering Scale and Adaptability. AMIA Annu Symp Proc;  2018 Nov 3-7; San Francisco.

• Abujarad F, Alfano S, Bright TJ, Kannoth S, Gueble M, Peduzzi P, Chupp G. Building an Informed Consent Tool Starting with the Patient: The Patient-Centered Virtual Multimedia Interactive Informed Consent (VIC). AMIA Annu Symp Proc;  2017 Nov 4-8; Washington, DC. 374-383. PMCID: PMC5977640.

• Cimino JJ, Bright TJ, Li J. Medication reconciliation using natural language processing and controlled terminologies. Stud Health Technol Inform. 2007;129(Pt 1):679-83.

• Michel MC, Bero LA, Bright T. Creating a text data-mining application for use in public health informatics. Conf Proc IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc. 2004;5:3214-6.
 

PEER-REVIEWED ABSTRACTS​

• Walk BOJ, Wiley K, Walters-Threat L, Rivera RL, Were MC, Bright TJ. A Framework to Support Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion within AMIA Through Strengthened Pathways, Support, and Leadership. Annu Symp Proc. 2021 Oct 30-Nov 3 2021.

• Bright TJ, McCoy AB, Weeraratne D, Unertl K. Developing an Academic-Industry Internship to Train Next-Generation Biomedical Informaticians. AMIA Annu Symp Proc. 2021 Oct 30-Nov 3 2021.
• Bright TJ, Petersen C, Wang K, Kronk C, Dykes P. How Will AMIA Lead? An Environmental Scan of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Activities within the Healthcare and Health IT Space. AMIA Annu Symp Proc. 2021 Oct 30-Nov 3 2021.
• Bright TJ, Agunwa C, Unertl K, Walk BOJ, Senathirajah Y. Representation Requires Intentionality: Our Journey to Creating a Diverse Informatics Workforce. AMIA Annu Symp Proc. 2021 Oct 30-Nov 3 2021.
• Rizvi R, Overby C, Johnson E, Bright TJ. Recommendations on Building a Sustainable AMIA Centered Around Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Practices - A Preliminary Report. AMIA Annu Symp Proc. 2021 Oct 30-Nov 3 2021.

• Huang H, Kefayati S, Clark CR, Preininger AM, Bright TJ, Jackson GP, Rhee K, Dankwa-Mullan I. Race, Social Determinant and COVID-19 Mortality Patterns in the United States. 2021 SGIM Annual Meeting.

• Rizvi R, Bright TJ, Vanhouten C, McKillop M, Wang S, Alevy S, Brotman D, Sands-Lincoln M, Robinson B, Staats C, Jackson GP, Kassler WJ. Usability and Impact of a Care-Management System in Holistically Delivering Services to Vulnerable Populations. AMIA Informatics Summit 2021, Virtual Conference Mar 25-27.

 

•Novak LL, Anders S, France D, Simpson C, VanHouten C, Kutub N, Draulis K, Rizvi R, Bright TJ, Preininger AM. Medication information resource tools: Who uses them and for what purpose are they used? AMIA Informatics Summit 2021, Virtual Conference Mar 25-27.

•McCoy AB, Williams KS, Chapman WW, Tiase VL, Rajamani S, Senathirajah, Unertl KM, Jones TL, Hebert C, Taylor K, Bright TJ. Introducing Undergraduate Women to Biomedical informatics through the AMIA First Look Program. AMIA Annu Symp Proc. 2020 Nov 14-18 2020.

•McNabb J, Wan S, Bright TJ, Unertl K, Weeraratne D, McCoy AB. Implementation of Artificial Intelligence-Enabled Clinical Decision Support: A Systematic Review on Clinical Outcomes. AMIA Informatics Summit Proc. 2020.

•Wan S, McNabb J, Bright TJ, Unertl K, Weeraratne D, McCoy AB. Barriers and Facilitators to Adoption of Artificial Intelligence-Based Clinical Decision Support: Preliminary Findings of a Systematic Review. AMIA Informatics Summit Proc. 2020.

Select Publications
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