William M. Tierney, M.D.

William Tierney, M.D., is internationally recognized for his research in biomedical informatics, health services and clinical database epidemiology. He was the founding chair of Dell Medical School’s Department of Population Health, which is playing a leading role in the school’s mission to help make Austin a model healthy city. The Department of Population Health focuses on community engagement, health equity, primary care, occupational health, global health and health information and data analytic sciences.

Previously, he spent 36 years at Indiana University and the Regenstrief Institute, where he led the implementation and study of electronic medical records and health information technologies. In 2010, he assumed the roles of president and CEO of the Regenstrief Institute, associate dean for research at the Indiana University School of Medicine and chairman of the Department of Internal Medicine for Eskenazi Health, the nation’s fourth-largest safety-net health system, where he had practiced for more than 35 years as a primary care physician, emergency physician and hospitalist. He also served as the founding director of informatics and research for the Academic Model Providing Access to Healthcare (AMPATH), a 30-year collaboration of more than 20 North American universities with universities in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.

Tierney is a member of the National Academy of Medicine, a master of the American College of Physicians and fellow of the Royal College of Physician–London and the International Academy of Health Sciences Informatics.