Todd R. Johnson, PhD, is a professor of biomedical informatics at McWilliams School of Biomedical Informatics at UTHealth Houston, formerly UTHealth Houston School of Biomedical Informatics (SBMI). Johnson’s efforts are focused on the application of informatics in clinical settings, including quality and safety dashboards, visual analytics, clinical research informatics and big data for health care. His research uses cognitive science, computer science and human factors engineering to solve biomedical informatics problems. In 1991, Johnson received his PhD in artificial intelligence from The Ohio State University, after which, he continued his research at Ohio State as an associate professor in the Department of Pathology’s Laboratory for Knowledge Based Medical Systems. In 1998, Johnson came to McWilliams School of Biomedical Informatics as one of the founding faculty members and served for three years as the associate dean for academic affairs. Johnson left to join the faculty at the University of Kentucky in 2010, where he developed a new academic division of biomedical informatics and led the effort to transform clinical and translational science through the use of new digital methodologies. He rejoined the McWilliams School of Biomedical Informatics faculty as a professor on Nov. 1, 2013.
“Informatics is the science of meaningful data, which indicates why informatics is so hard: machines are best at processing data, whereas humans are best at constructing and processing meaning. To better manage and utilize the increasing amount of biomedical data, we need to find ways to program computers to act as if they understand the meaning of that data or to help us derive meaning from data. By doing this, computers can begin to give us information, instead of overloading us with data.”
Todd.R.Johnson@uth.tmc.edu
Phone: 713-500-3913
Fax: 713-500-3929
Shay Stewart-Price
Phone: 713-500-3983
Current Projects
Special Topics in Health Informatics: Health Informatics Visualization & Visual Analytics (HI 6001b)
In Review
In Press
In Print