Christian Wernz

Christian Wernz teaches Health Care Data Science in the MSDS Online program. In developing and teaching this course, Wernz brings together his current industry experience as a health care data scientist, with his prior educational and research experience as a university professor.

Wernz works as a Lead Data Scientist at Sentara Health and was previously a Senior Data Scientist at UVA Health. Prior to joining industry, Wernz was an associate professor in Health Care Administration at VCU and an assistant professor in Industrial and Systems Engineering at Virginia Tech.

Wernz is known for his pioneering research in multiscale decision theory and his contributions to health care systems, systems engineering, and enterprise systems. His work has been funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), and various foundations and industry partners, such as the Neiman Health Policy Institute, Rolls Royce, and Dell. In his current research, Wernz focuses on improving population health with innovative data science methodologies and applications. He also serves as an advisor to health AI start-up companies.

Wernz received his Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Business Engineering from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Germany, with stints at BMW and McKinsey. He was born and raised in Germany.