AMIA's Academic Forum will present the Academic Forum Health Informatics Educator of the Year Award to William R. Hersh, MD, FACMI, FAMIA, FACP, FIAHSI, on November 18 during the State of the Association meeting at the 2025 Annual Symposium.
This award recognizes AMIA members who have made significant and sustained contributions to health informatics education, including excellence in teaching, curriculum innovation, and workforce development, as well as a demonstrated commitment to mentoring the next generation of informatics professionals.
“It is an honor to recognize Dr. Bill Hersh with the inaugural Academic Forum Health Informatics Educator of the Year Award,” said Paul Nagy, PhD, Head of Biomedical Informatics and Data Science Section at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. “He has set the global benchmark for excellence in health informatics education. For nearly four decades, his visionary leadership, innovative curriculum design, and unwavering commitment to student success have shaped the field and inspired generations of informaticians worldwide. His influence extends far beyond the classroom - transforming programs, institutions, and lives. Dr. Hersh truly embodies the spirit of this award.”
Dr. Hersh is a Professor in the Department of Medical Informatics & Clinical Epidemiology (DMICE) in the School of Medicine at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) in Portland, Oregon, USA. Dr. Hersh served as the inaugural Chair of DMICE from its inception in 2003 through 2022. He is a leader and innovator in biomedical informatics both in education and research. In education, he served as Director of OHSU's Biomedical Informatics Graduate Program, from its inception in 1996 through 2023. The program includes two master's degrees (research and professional), a PhD degree, and Graduate Certificate, and has nearly 1000 alumni. Dr. Hersh also conceptualized and implemented the first offering of the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) 10x10 ("ten by ten") program, which has been completed by more than 3000 individuals since 2005. In addition, he serves as Editor of the textbook, Health Informatics: Practical Guide, Eighth Edition (Lulu.com, 2022), which is available in print and eBook format and has an associated Web site. Dr. Hersh still serves as Director of OHSU's Research Training Program in Biomedical Informatics and Data Science, which is funded by a T15 training grant from the National Library of Medicine, and as Associate Program Director of OHSU's ACGME-accredited Clinical Informatics Fellowship. Dr. Hersh has also been involved in other global efforts to expand informatics capacity through education, collaborating with colleagues at Hospital Italiano of Buenos Aires, Argentina, as part of the Data Science Initiative for Africa in collaboration with the University of Cape Town, with Gateway Consulting in Singapore, and elsewhere.
He also co-leads efforts to teach clinical informatics to other health professions students. He helped define competencies and shape the curriculum for OHSU medical students. He has also been involved in the teaching of nursing, graduate basic science, and undergraduate health science majors (at Portland State University).
Dr. Hersh has also made many contributions in research. His research originally focused in the area of information retrieval, where he has authored over 200 scientific papers as well as the book, Information Retrieval: A Biomedical and Health Perspective (Springer, 2020), now in its fourth edition, available from Springer (including SpringerLink) or Amazon, and which has an associated Web site. Dr. Hersh is also active in clinical research informatics. He served as Director of the Biomedical Informatics Program of the Oregon Clinical & Translational Research Institute (OCTRI) from 2006-2014 and was Chair of the National Informatics Steering Committee of the Clinical & Translational Science Award (CTSA) program of the National Institutes of Health from 2006-2008.
Dr. Hersh has won numerous awards for his innovations. These include the 2007 OHSU Faculty Senate Distinguished Faculty Award for outstanding teaching, the 2008 AMIA Donald A.B. Lindberg Award for Innovation in Informatics, the 2015 Healthcare Information Management Systems Society (HIMSS) Physician Leadership Award, the 2022 AMIA William W. Stead Award for Thought Leadership in Informatics, and the 2023 HIMSS Oregon Chapter Lifetime Achievement Award. He is an elected Fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics (FACMI), the American Medical Informatics Association (FAMIA), and the American College of Physicians (FACP). He was among the inaugural 121 elected members of the International Academy of Health Sciences Informatics (IAHSI) and was served as its second President from 2020-2022. He is also an elected member of the SIGIR Academy.
Dr. Hersh also maintains the Informatics Professor blog and the What is Biomedical & Health Informatics? Web site.
Dr. Hersh obtained his B.S. in Biology from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana in 1980 and his M.D. from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 1984. After finishing a residency in Internal Medicine at University of Illinois Hospital in Chicago in 1987, he completed a Fellowship in Medical Informatics at Harvard University in 1990. Dr. Hersh has been at OHSU since 1990.