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The Team

Meet the team of the Institute for AI in Medicine.

Abel Kho, MD, MS, FACMI

Abel Kho, MD, MS, FACMI

Director, Institute for Artificial Intelligence in Medicine

Director, Institute for Public Health and Medicine (IPHAM) - Center for Health Information Partnerships

Professor of Medicine (General Internal Medicine and Geriatrics) and Preventive Medicine (Health and Biomedical Informatics)

Abel Kho, MD, MS, FACMI, is Tenured Professor of Medicine and Preventive Medicine in the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University, Founding Director of the Institute for Artificial Intelligence in Medicine (I.AIM), and Director of the Center for Health Information Partnerships (CHIP) within the Institute for Public Health and Medicine. His work focuses on bringing people, data, and tools together to enable the success of students, researchers, and community partners.  

Abel is the Principal Investigator (PI) for several multi-institutional collaborative projects. He helped found CAPriCORN, a patient-centered outcomes and research network. He is the PI along with Dr. Patricia Franklin for the AHRQ/PCORI funded K12 training award, A Chicago Center of Excellence in Learning Health Systems Research Training (ACCELERAT), which builds upon CAPriCORN to train the next generation of leaders in learning health systems research. 

Abel’s research has focused on how to link and analyze data efficiently across sites while preserving individual and institutional privacy.  Privacy preserving record linkage and analysis methods can help form a more complete picture for research and population health.  For example, as a member of the All of Us Research Program Data and Research Center, Abel is studying whether data linkage can improve the completeness and quality of EHR data for study participants. In 2020, he was awarded the Don Lindbergh Award for Innovation in Informatics for his work in the development and application of privacy preserving record linkage methods. 

As a primary care provider, Abel leads projects improving quality of care in the community. With Dr. JD Smith and Dr. Paris Davis, Abel is Principal Investigator for the NHLBI-funded CIRCL-Chicago project, part of the DECIPHeR Alliance, which aims to address disparities in hypertension control in the South Side of Chicago.  Along with Dr. Theresa Walunas, he is Principal Investigator for the AHRQ-funded INSPIRE (Intervention in Small Primary Care Practices to Implement Reduction in Unhealthy Alcohol Use) project, which supports and evaluates the implementation of screening and treatment interventions for patients with unhealthy alcohol use. 

Twitter: @AbelKho 
View Abel’s NU Faculty Profile for publications, news, and more. 

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Meghan Gelecke

Meghan Gelecke

I.AIM Operations Leader

Meghan is a Foo Fighters fan who manages administrative tasks, in that order. She believes in I.AIM’s mission and supports the efforts to achieve those goals.
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Noah Haines

Noah Haines

I.AIM Project Coordinator

Noah Haines is Project Coordinator for the Institute for AI in Medicine at Northwestern University. He also serves as Network Coordinator for CAPriCORN, a multi-partner, patient-centered outcomes and research network. Prior to joining the I.AIM team, he lived a former life as a professional musician, gaining experience in developing and overseeing a myriad of creative programs and projects. His mission is to facilitate the creation of a health data ecosystem that improves how patients receive their healthcare.
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Kristi L Holmes, PhD

Kristi L Holmes, PhD

I.AIM Chief of Knowledge Management

Director, Galter Health Sciences Library

Professor of Preventive Medicine (Health and Biomedical Informatics) and Medical Education

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Yuan Luo, PhD

Yuan Luo, PhD

I.AIM Chief AI Officer

Chief AI Officer at Northwestern University Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute

Associate Professor, Preventive Medicine, Feinberg School of Medicine

Yuan Luo is currently Associate Professor at Department of Preventive Medicine, at Feinberg School of Medicine in Northwestern University. He is Chief AI Officer at Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute (NUCATS) and Institute for Augmented Intelligence in Medicine. Dr. Luo earned his PhD degree from MIT EECS with a math minor. He won the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) New Investigator Award in 2020. He served on AMIA Membership and Outreach Committee. His publications appear in leading journals including Nature Medicine, JAMA, AJRCCM, JAMIA, JBI etc. He has published in and/or served as PC members for top AI and informatics conferences including AAAI, KDD, CVPR, ACL, AMIA etc.
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Ngan MacDonald

Ngan MacDonald

I.AIM Chief of Data Operations

Ngan MacDonald is Chief of Data Operations for the Institute for Augmented Intelligence in Medicine at Northwestern University. She serves as acting Chief Data Officer for Bast.AI and an advisor for Mercurial AI, both startup companies focusing on the ethical use of AI. She helps them to understand the healthcare landscape and the complexity of healthcare data. She has over 20 years of experience providing technical and business leadership for information strategies and solution implementations with large and small companies. Her experience spans across analytics, information management, data strategy, and regulatory compliance with interoperability. Ngan’s healthcare experience spans 15+ years with both large and small health insurers in operational roles as well as in management consulting. Her mission is to create a collaborative data ecosystem that liberates data for use to improve our healthcare system.
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Kelly N Michelson, MD, MPH

Kelly N Michelson, MD, MPH

I.AIM Chief Ethics Officer

Director, Institute for Public Health and Medicine (IPHAM) - Center for Bioethics and Medical Humanities

Julia and David Uihlein Professor of Bioethics and Medical Humanities

Professor of Pediatrics (Critical Care)

I am Professor of Pediatrics, Julia and David Uihlein Professor of Bioethics and Medical Humanities, Director of the Center for Bioethics and Medical Humanities, and Chief Ethics Officer for the Institute for Artificial Intelligence in Medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. I am also an attending physician at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago in the division of pediatric critical care medicine.

My research interests include communication, decision making, palliative care, and ethics. Currently, my research focuses on communication and decision making among patients, family caregivers, and professional caregivers in the pediatric intensive care unit using family care conferences. I also study disparities in access to bereavement support for people after the death of a child and opportunities to improve enrollment in clinical research through recruitment in community-based clinics using novel technology.

My work uses qualitative and quantitative methods as well as patient/stakeholder engagement and community-based participatory research methods. I serve on mentorship teams of K awardees and early career investigators. My research has been funded by the NIH, PCORI, National Palliative Research Center, American Cancer Society, and the Greenwall Foundation. I am dedicated to helping others achieve their full potential and follow their passion. 

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Beatrice Nardone, MD, PhD

Beatrice Nardone, MD, PhD

I.AIM Lead Clinical Data Scientist

I.AIM Core Faculty

Research Associate Professor of Medicine (General Internal Medicine and Geriatrics) and Dermatology

Dr. Nardone received her MD from University of Catania (Italy), where she completed her Dermatology residency and earned her PhD in Preclinical and Clinical Pharmacology. She spent 2 years as a PhD student at Northwestern University where she completed her PhD research thesis and also earned a Certificate in Pharmacoepidemiology through the University of Illinois in Chicago. Dr. Nardone’s research has focused on pharmacoepidemiology and co-morbidities related to dermatology and her research has expanded to include advanced data mining and analysis of real-world data utilizing diverse data sources. She is currently appointed as a Research Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine and Dermatology. In addition to her research, Dr. Nardone provides advice and mentorship to other researchers and students on the use of augmented intelligence in medicine.
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Bill Temps

Bill Temps

I.AIM Solutions Engineer

Bill Temps learned computer programming from books before he had a computer to use, before the IBM PC was introduced. Later, he worked as a computer operator and programmer for Northwestern; while there, he recommended that all new programs use four-digit years to avoid problems with the year 2000, but since this was far off in the distant future, the suggestion was not accepted.

Most of his career has been in banking and finance, including what is now JP Morgan Chase and Merrill Lynch (supporting computer systems -- nothing to do with the banking crisis or Great Recession). In the early 1990s, he switched from the IBM Virtual Machine facility (VM) to Unix system support. While employed by IBM Global Services, between mid-1998 and 2000, he led a team to prepare a bank's Unix systems for the year 2000.

He returned to Northwestern in 2012, doing programming and statistical analysis in support of Dennis West's RADAR group, investigating adverse effects of prescription drugs. He joined I.AIM in December, 2020, with the title of Solutions Engineer and the goals of resolving problems and facilitating research.
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Eva Winckler, MPH

Eva Winckler, MPH

I.AIM Communications Manager

Eva Winckler, MPH, has a background in marketing, communications, and public health. In her role as Communications Manager, she guides communications strategy for the institute as well as for the Center for Health Information Partnerships (CHIP). Prior to joining CHIP and I.AIM, Eva gained experience building capacity for community-academic research teams and also managed communications for a non-profit breast cancer support organization. She earned a Master of Public Health from the University of Illinois at Chicago and holds an undergraduate degree from Northwestern University.
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