Public Biography
I am presently the Dean and a Distinguished University Professor of the School of Public Health of the University of Memphis. I describe myself as an innovator, entrepreneur, educator, researcher, administrator, and mentor. I am an established population health informatics researcher combining academic training in clinical medicine, public health, and informatics to design and develop human-centered, technology-enabled interventions to enhance population health outcomes across diverse community settings. I have extensive experience in utilizing community and hospital-based data to implement and evaluate informatics-enabled solutions to address social, economic, and health inequities of the 21st century. I also combine data-driven innovative entrepreneurial creative approaches to advance excellence in public health education, and research, that can address public health challenges in the community by preparing the next generation of public health leaders. Despite my administrative role, I continue scholarly and research contributions toward improving the good health and well-being of individuals, families, and the communities they live in. I have conceptualized the SMAART (Sustainable, Multisector, Accessible, Affordable, Reimbursable, and Tailored) model using combined principles of the human-centered approach, humanistic, behavioral, learning, and information processing theory to advance the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals. I have designed and developed, standalone and internet-enabled, multi-lingual, digital health interventions such as population health dashboards, consumer health informatics, m-health interventions, and population-based surveillance tools across multiple settings to improve population health outcomes. the areas of population health informatics across multiple countries including the US, India, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Haiti, Egypt, and Brazil. These projects were funded by several Federal, State, and International government agencies and other private foundations. I was presented with the Distinguished Service Award by the NYC Test and Trace Corps program for making contributions to reversing the COVID-19 outbreak and protecting and promoting the safety and well-being of New York residents. I have developed SMAART public health intervention incubator in India and expanded it across several states in India with an aim to bring public health research into action through multisector partnerships, data-driven interventions, Innovations, skill-based training, and innovative and sustainable community programs, that address health inequities. iI was also an author of the first textbook published on Population Health Informatics: Driving Evidence-based solutions into practice published by Jones Bartlett.