Artificial Intelligence Industry Innovation for Healthcare Appoints Don Brown to Board

Don Brown, Senior Associate Dean for Research and Quantitative Foundation Distinguished Professor of Data Science at the School of Data Science, was recently appointed to the board of the Artificial Intelligence Industry Innovation Coalition for Healthcare (AI3C). Brown is one of 12 board executives representing forward-thinking organizations, AI leadership, and innovation. 

AI3C was created by Microsoft and is made up of 800 members from the U.S. Health and Life Sciences team, Microsoft, and World Healthcare Organization working at the intersection of AI and healthcare. The mission of AI3C is to showcase emerging AI tools, define healthcare-specific AI use cases, develop industry AI best practices, and drive workforce transformation by preparing students for AI healthcare careers. 

The AI3C organization's newest initiative will focus on the intersection of health equity and AI, both of which are spaces Brown has vast experience in through research and leadership. 

Brown brings to the AI3C board decades of experience in data science and his recent work is at the intersection of data science with health care, specifically as Co-Director of Translational Health Institute of Virginia. Also known as iThriv, Translational Health Institute of Virginia is a federally funded collaboration between the University of Virginia, Virginia Tech, Carilion Clinic, and Inova that facilitates clinical and translational research across the state. 

According to Brown, what Microsoft is doing with AI3C aligns well with his work in AI around several different topics. “One project uses AI to interpret histopathology images diagnosis , using AI to help diagnose problems and better understanding the characteristics of the image that would lead to improved treatment and diagnosis. Another one is looking at cardiopulmonary exercise testing data. We are taking relatively small numbers, and using AI, we can identify conditions in patients with pretty good accuracy.”

Brown has co-authored several publications about AI, including Operations Research and Artificial Intelligence: The Integration of Problem Solving Strategies and Intelligent Scheduling Systems. He was also the Chairman of the Operations Research Society of America Technical Section on Artificial Intelligence.

Brown was appointed Senior Associate Dean for Research and Quantitative Foundation at the School of Data Science in 2018 after serving as the Director of the Data Science Institute. He holds dual appointments as a Distinguished Professor of Data Science as well as the W.S. Calcott Professor in Systems and Information Engineering. Brown teaches courses on data fusion, knowledge discovery, and simulation optimization.