CB2 is growing!
This summer we hired a new Director of our Health Data Science Services team! Introducing Velma Payne.
Velma Payne, PhD has joined the CB2 team here at The University of Arizona as the Director of Health Data Science Services. In her role she will direct the systems, policies and processes concerning transport, management, and analysis of data from our clinical partners to support biomedical research. She will collaborate with clinical partners, IT professionals, investigators, faculty and trainees to create and develop innovative biomedical data solutions. In addition, she will serve as a technical expert for health data analysis, transport systems and protocols and as liaison for CB2 for technical connections to our healthcare partners.
Dr. Payne has a diverse background including more than 25 years in information technology where she developed strong technical skills and managed technical teams. She also spent over a decade in academia developing, implementing, and managing numerous health academic programs and serving in upper-level management roles including AVP of Online Programs, Program Director of Health Informatics, Chair of Health Information Systems, and Chair of Healthcare Administration.
Our growth continues this fall with the hiring of Jennifer Pacheco, MS in a NEW role under the Health Data Science Services team as Senior Health Data Phenotyper.
Jennifer Pacheco, MS will serve in a NEW role as Senior Health Data Phenotyper in CB2 working closely with the Banner Research Warehouse team and other clinical partners to enable rapid and accurate delivery of research data for University of Arizona researchers. Jennifer is responsible for the full stack of design, improvement/implementation and maintenance of digital phenotyping tools and methods; development of training materials to improve phenotype expertise across UA; and, improvements in research data access across the Banner/UA collaboration.
Jennifer Pacheco has a bachelor’s degree in computer science with a minor in psychology, a post-baccalaureate certificate in biology, a graduate certificate in bioinformatics and in 2020 graduated with a master’s degree in biomedical informatics. Jennifer is an experienced health data (esp. EHRs (electronic health records) phenotyper with experience in a variety of web, data analysis and other programming languages, tools and technologies; including AI (artificial intelligence) such as ML (machine learning), and multiple other data mining techniques. After graduating with her bachelor’s, she traveled around the world as a data mining consultant for one of the leading global consulting companies based in Chicago for 5 years, and also worked several years for a Cambridge, MA, pharmaceutical company where she developed dynamic web pages and configured scientific software. Most recently, she led the informatics and phenotyping at the Center for Genetic Medicine at NU (Northwestern University) in Chicago for close to 100 phenotypes for: the NUgene project (DNA biobank for which she also led the technical operations); the national eMERGE (electronic Medical Records and Genomics) network for which she is the co-chair of the QA/QC Task Force; HeartShare (national heart failure study); and other international collaborations, for 20 years. As a result of her work at NU, she is lead author of several studies informatics articles and co-author on ~100 publications. She is an active member of AMIA (American Medical Informatics Association) and MCBK (Mobilizing Computable Biomedical Knowledge).
