The UCSF Chief Research Informatics Officer (CRIO) is a member of enterprise-wide research informatics leadership at UCSF. As part of UCSF’s Office of Research, the CRIO reports directly to the Vice Chancellor for Research (VCR).

Key Responsibilities

• Strategic leadership of UCSF’s enterprise-wide research informatics, computational research, and research IT services and resources. 
• Partnership with UCSF’s Associate Chief Information Officer (ACIO) for Research, a top-level staff leadership position in the VCR’s Office of Research, to collaboratively guide the implementation of solutions to UCSF’s priority research informatics initiatives. 
• Partnership with UCSF Health’s Chief Health Information Officer and others in UCSF’s clinical and campus leadership to expand research informatics integration with UCSF Health (e.g., Epic-engaged research, learning healthcare system). 
• Partnership with UCSF’s Chief Data Officer and Central IT to facilitate access to UCSF data assets for research. 
• Strategic oversight of UCSF’s institutional applications for research informatics-related grants and contracts (e.g., Clinical and Translational Science Award). Identification of extramural partnerships (e.g., UC campuses, Federal agencies, private industry, foundations) that will advance UCSF’s research informatics vision and priorities. 

Current Initiatives

• A strategic plan for UCSF research informatics that will secure and expand UCSF’s position as a world leader in basic and clinical health sciences research.  
• Partnering across the enterprise to support and enable effective governance and oversight of research informatics. 
• Methods and techniques to enable AI across UCSF research. 
• Positioning UCSF’s Epic-engaged research program to improve access and efficiency across inpatient, outpatient, and community and public health research. 
• Strategic plan refinement and execution for UCSF’s high-performance computing and knowledge computing resources and operational model. 
• Access to enhanced tools, compute, and support for research informatics, including enhanced findability and usability of UCSF data assets. 
• Coordinating UCSF response to large informatics and IT-related institution-wide/center grant and partnership opportunities. 

The CRIO Team

• Ida Sim, MD, PhD - CRIO
• Beth Berrean, MBA, MLIS - Consulting Advisor, Policy and Operations 
• Romain Pirracchio, MD, PhD - Consulting Advisor, AI Algorithm Evaluation and Monitoring  
• Sharat Israni, PhD - Consulting Advisor, Technology 

The CRIO also collaborates across the UC and UCSF ecosystem with partners including:

• Bakar Computational Health Science Institute (BC)HSI 
• CTSI’s Informatics and Research Innovation (IRI), Regulatory Knowledge and Support (RKS), and the Research Action Group on Equity (RAGE) programs 
• Division of Clinical Informatics and Transformation (DoC-IT) within the Department of Medicine 
• Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics (DEB) 
• Health IT Informatics Data Science and Innovation team (Health AI) 
• School of Medicine, Dean’s Office, Technical Services Unit (SOM Tech) 
• UCSF and UC Berkeley Computational Precision Health Program (CPH) 

Contact

Stay updated on activities within the office of the CRIO at ai.ucsf.edu  and the Office of Research’s ReSearch ReSource newsletter. Contact our team at [email protected].