People
Informaticians, data scientists, and software developers in the Department of Biomedical Informatics at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
Alvin D. Jeffery, PhD, RN, CCRN, FNP-BC
Assistant Professor of Biomedical Informatics and Nursing
Dr. Jeffery completed his PhD (Nursing Science & Health Services Research) at Vanderbilt University’s School of Nursing in 2017 and a Medical Informatics Post-Doctoral Fellowship with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and Vanderbilt University’s Department of Biomedical Informatics in 2019.
He previously held an AHRQ/PCORI K12 focused on Learning Healthcare Systems and Implementation Science as well as the highly-selective Betty Irene Moore Fellowship for Nurse Leaders and Innovators. He is currently funded by the NIH to develop precision phenotypes for substance use disorders with the aim of accelerating genetics studies.
He came to informatics from pediatric critical care nursing and a staff educator role at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, and is board certified in that specialty and as a Family Nurse Practitioner. He is a former Emerging Leader with the Alliance of Nursing Informatics.
Members
Parker Christy
Software Developer
Parker comes from a background in customer service and technical support and studied computer science at Western Governors University. He has a strong interest in machine learning in health care.
Dagmawi Negesse
Software Developer
Dagmawi is a Technology Project Manager and software developer in the Jeffery Lab at VUMC. Originally from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, he holds a B.S. in computer science from Eastern Kentucky University and a master's in technology management. He builds clinical NLP tools and EHR data pipelines focused on substance use disorder phenotyping and contributes to and maintains the open-source sudregex package.
Bradford Patton
Data Scientist
Bradford Patton is from Clinton, Mississippi, and is a PhD Candidate in Data Science at Meharry Medical College. He earned a bachelor’s degree in Mathematics from Tougaloo College and a Master’s degree in Data Science from Meharry Medical College. His interests include machine learning, data science, knowledge graphs, and the application of computational techniques to solve complex problems.
Drew Wilimitis
Data Analyst and PhD Student
Drew Wilimitis is a second-year PhD student in Biomedical Informatics at Vanderbilt University. He has a B.S. in Computational and Applied Mathematics from the University of Chicago and a professional background in data science and applied machine learning. His main research interest is in leveraging healthcare data and computational methods to improve risk detection and inform clinical decision making in mental health.
Ransom Wyse, MPH, CPH
Program Manager
Ransom is an epidemiologist who works in Dr. Alvin Jeffery’s team as a Program Manager. Ransom has been working on aspects of the DP1 grant, “Framework to Accelerate Substance Use Disorder Genetic Studies through Customizable, EHR-Based Precision Phenotyping,” including writing articles regarding natural language processing, phenotyping for case definitions, and clinical decision support tools. His work directly contributes to the mission of VUMC via his expertise; his analytics and interpretations of our research findings will inform best-practices for SUD identification in an at-risk population, which can be used by the scientific and clinical community to improve patient healthcare.
Join or collaborate
For questions about joining the lab or collaborating with us, email the lab.
quantitativenurse@gmail.com