Kim M. Unertl, PhD

< previous core faculty                    next core faculty >

FOCUS: HIT, workflow, user-centered design

Kim Unertl, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Biomedical Informatics in the School of Medicine at Vanderbilt University. Dr. Unertl received her B.S. in biomedical engineering from Marquette University and M.S. and PhD in biomedical informatics from Vanderbilt University. Her current research focuses on the intersection of health information technology and clinical workflow, including the design and implementation of technology. Dr. Unertl’s primary interest for research settings include chronic disease care and community engagement. She also works toward development of evidence-based strategies for organizational change management during technology implementation. She is the current chair-elect for the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) People and Organizational Issues Working Group (POI-WG), serves as a member of the AMIA POI-WG Diana Forsythe Award Committee, and is a member of the Editorial Board for the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association (JAMIA).

Beyond her research, Dr. Unertl is a nationally recognized leader in development of new pathways into the biomedical informatics field. She directs the Department of Biomedical Informatics (DBMI) summer programs for high school and undergraduate students and is co-PI of DBMI’s NSF-funded Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) site, the Program for Access to Training in Health Informatics (REU-PATHI). She is also co-founder and co-director of the NLM-funded AMIA High School Scholars Program, which brings high school students to the annual AMIA Symposium to present their research and build connections to the biomedical informatics community. She was awarded the DBMI Outstanding Educator Award in 2016 and was inducted into the Vanderbilt School of Medicine’s Academy for Excellence in Education in 2017. She is currently a member of the AMIA Education Committee and serves on the Women in AMIA Pipeline Subcommittee.

Research Interests

Workflow, user-centered design, health information technology, STEM pathways development, sociotechnical systems, people and organizational issues