New York, NY—DSI affiliate Suzanne Bakken has been named the new Editor-in-Chief of the peer-reviewed informatics journal, Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association (JAMIA), published by the American Medical Informatics Association. Bakken, who is Alumni Professor of Nursing and Professor of Biomedical Informatics at Columbia and also a member of the Data Science Institute, was chosen for the post by the association’s Board of Directors. At DSI, Bakken is co-chair of the Institute’s Health Analytics Center.

The appointment is effective January 1, 2019, and brings Bakken full circle with the journal, inasmuch as Bakken authored a paper that appeared in the first edition of JAMIA in January 1994.

As JAMIA’s chief editor, Bakken seeks to implement “a philosophy of consequentialist informatics that emphasizes discovery and innovative application of informatics and data science methods to solve crucial health issues and maximize health and equity,” she says.

“My activities as Editor-in-Chief are synergistic with my role as Co-Chair of DSI’s Health Analytics Center and our Habits2Health quest,” adds Bakken.  “I look forward to engaging with the data science community to make JAMIA the preferred journal for dissemination of data science papers for health and biomedicine.”

Jeannette M. Wing, Avanessians Director of DSI, says Bakken brings to the role of editor-in-chief her deep knowledge in clinical care and biomedical informatics, “which will help make JAMIA preeminent in advancing the application of data science to healthcare and medicine,”

“We are privileged to have someone of Bakken’s caliber taking the helm of JAMIA, particularly at this critical time for our field and for health care in general,” said Peter Embi, AMIA Board Chair, in the association’s release. “Sue will bring not only her deep expertise as a researcher, author, editor, and mentor in the field with more than 30 years of published work, but also her broad perspective at the intersection of informatics, biomedicine and health care that will be so critical to the important work of the journal.”

Bakken has received funding from the National Cancer Institute, the National Library of Medicine, and the Health Resources and Services Administration. Bakken has published more than 200 peer-reviewed papers. In 2010, she received the Pathfinder Award from the Friends of the National Institute of Nursing Research. She is an elected fellow of the New York Academy of Medicine, the American Academy of Nursing, the American College of Medical Informatics, and a member of the Institute of Medicine. She has been a member of AMIA since 1991 and has held various positions within the organization, including membership on its Board of Directors and chair of the AMIA 2000 Annual Symposium Scientific Program Committee. She is also a fellow and current immediate past-president of the American College of Medical Informatics and is a recipient of the Virginia K. Saba Informatics Award.

The Data Science Institute at Columbia University seeks to advance the study of extracting value from data by advancing the tools of data science, and its ethical and responsible application to all disciplines for the benefit of society through its research and academic programs.

JAMIA, published by Oxford University Press, is a monthly peer-reviewed journal for biomedical and health informatics. Covering the full spectrum of activities in the field, JAMIA includes informatics articles in the areas of clinical care, clinical research, translational science, implementation science, imaging, education, consumer health, public health, and policy. JAMIA’s articles describe innovative informatics research and systems that help to advance biomedical science and to promote health. Case reports, perspectives and reviews also help readers stay connected with the most important informatics developments in implementation, policy and education.

AMIA is a professional association for biomedical and health informatics professionals with 5,500 informatics professionals from more than 65 countries as members. AMIA and its members play a leading role in assessing the effect of health innovations on health policy and advancing the field of informatics. AMIA actively supports five domains in informatics: translational bioinformatics, clinical research informatics, clinical informatics, consumer health informatics, and public health informatics.

— Robert Florida