Vimla Patel, PhD, DSc, FRSC

Senior Research Scientist, Cognitive Studies in Medicine and Public Health, Research, Evaluation & Policy

Dr. Vimla L Patel joined NYAM in 2011 as a Senior Research Scientist in Cognitive Studies in Medicine and Public Health. She also holds an appointment as an Adjunct Professor of Biomedical Informatics in the Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University and the College of Health Solutions at Arizona State University. A PhD cognitive psychologist trained at McGill University in Montreal, she was a Professor of Medicine and Psychology there as well as the Director of the Cognitive Science Center. Her early research focused on scientific foundations for improving medical education, with an interest in medical decision-making and expertise. She subsequently served on several biomedical informatics faculties as Professor at Columbia (2000-2007), Professor and Chair at Arizona State University (2007-2009), and Professor at the University of Texas Health Sciences Center in Houston (2009-20011).

She has served as principal investigator for several successful research programs with funding from NIH, foundations, and the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality [AHRQ]. These have included studies of young adults' sexual risk-taking behaviors, the generation and mitigation of medical errors, and clinicians' and lay public’s knowledge acquisition and decision-making processes. These qualitative studies identified cognitive processes linked to health behavioral outcomes for efficient, effective, and safer healthcare delivery through the application of computer-based decision-support systems.

An elected fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the American College of Medical Informatics, and the International Academy of Health Sciences Informatics, she is editor of the Springer book series on Cognitive Informatics in Healthcare and Biomedicine. She received the annual Swedish "Woman of Science" award and was awarded the 2021 AMIA William W. Stead Award for Thought Leadership in Informatics. This latter award recognized how her work influenced a new way of thinking (cognition) and its relevance to biomedical informatics (cognitive informatics). Dr. Patel has served on several National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine committees, including those related to developing safer technology to combat medical errors, the role of behavioral science for the military, approaches for marshaling technology for developing countries, and the role of behavioral ontologies in support of science. She also served for 20 years as an associate editor of the Journal of Biomedical Informatics. In her 35-year career dedicated to academic and clinical research and education, she has mentored 40 master's students, 25 doctoral students, and 20 post-doctoral and research fellows. She has over 350 scholarly publications spanning biomedical informatics, education, clinical, and cognitive science journals and is an editor or co-editor of seven books.

Personal Website

Contact Info:

• (212) 822-7388
• vpatel@nyam.org