Maninder “Mini” Kahlon, Ph.D.

Maninder “Mini” Kahlon is an associate professor in the Department of Population Health and was Dell Medical School’s founding vice dean of the health ecosystem. Her translational lab, Factor Health, identifies opportunities to rapidly improve health through programs embedded in people’s lives, outside the clinic, testing them through community-based trials. Solutions address chronic conditions such as diabetes, depression and loneliness, and they incorporate innovations in the workforce, systems design, and nutritional and behavioral health science.

Factor Health, supported by the Episcopal Health Foundation, the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation and others, leverages evidence, develops payment possibilities and refines programs with partners to scale health solutions outside the clinic. Kahlon also currently serves on the advisory board of CaroNova, a health transformation initiative supported by The Duke Endowment, the North Carolina Healthcare Association and the South Carolina Hospital Association, and Babson Diagnostics, an Austin-based science-driven diagnostic blood testing startup.

Arriving in 2014 to help establish Austin’s new medical school, she launched Texas Health Catalyst, Dell Med’s health translation platform for drugs, diagnostics, devices and digital health. She has been a founding chair of the Austin Healthcare Council and served as vice chair for health innovation at the Austin Chamber of Commerce. Together with colleagues, she launched a 50-plus member regional cancer collaborative to address the needs of the underserved, has served on the school health advisory board for Austin Independent School District and on the board of University Federal Credit Union, Austin’s largest credit union leveraging individual financial support towards economic prosperity in the region.

Kahlon was previously the executive director and chief information officer at the University of California San Francisco’s Clinical & Translational Science Institute, and faculty in the Department of Neurology. She is an award-winning technology leader with experience in industry and academic medicine, building consumer-facing and research-enabling tools. Her volunteer interests include supporting equity in K-12 education and advocating for human rights, for which she received a certificate of honor from the San Francisco Human Rights Commission. Kahlon is a behavioral and systems neuroscientist, receiving her Ph.D. from UCSF. She is also a graduate of Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania.