Michael J Pencina

Positions

• Adjunct Professor in the Department of Biostatistics & Bioinformatics
• Former Chief Data Scientist for Duke Health

Michael J. Pencina, PhD
Adjunct Professor, Biostatistics & Bioinformatics
Former Chief Data Scientist, Duke Health
Duke University School of Medicine

Michael J. Pencina, PhD, currently serves as UnitedHealth Group chief AI scientist, where he leads data science initiatives to enhance the organization’s innovative use of responsible AI systems that deliver real-world impact at scale for patients, providers, consumers and health plan members.  He is also adjunct professor of biostatistics and bioinformatics at Duke University School of Medicine.  He formerly served as Chief Data Scientist at Duke Health.

Dr. Pencina is an internationally recognized authority in the development, evaluation and responsible application of AI algorithms. His work pioneered new methods for assessment of predictive algorithms and helped establish frameworks for intentional governance of health AI systems. Expert societies and guideline groups have relied on his work to advance best practices for the application of clinical decision support tools in health delivery.  Since 2014, Thomson Reuters/Clarivate Analytics has regularly recognized Dr. Pencina as one of the world’s "highly cited researchers" in clinical medicine and social sciences, with more than 400 publications cited over 150,000 times.

He co-founded the national Coalition for Health AI (CHAI), a multi-stakeholder effort whose mission is to increase trustworthiness of AI by developing guidelines to drive high-quality health care through the implementation of innovative, credible, and transparent health AI systems. He also spearheaded establishing and co-led Duke Health’s Algorithm-Based Clinical Decision Support (ABCDS) Oversight Committee.

Dr. Pencina joined the Duke University faculty in 2013, and served as director of biostatistics for the Duke Clinical Research Institute until 2018. Previously, he was an associate professor in the Department of Biostatistics at Boston University and the Framingham Heart Study, and director of statistical consulting at the Harvard Clinical Research Institute. He received his PhD in Mathematics and Statistics from Boston University in 2003 and holds master’s degrees from the University of Warsaw in actuarial mathematics and business culture.

Email: michael.pencina@duke.edu

Web Sites:  medschool.duke.edu; aihealth.duke.edu; https://scholars.duke.edu/person/michael.pencina

Phone:  919.613.9066

Address:  Duke University School of Medicine; 2424 Erwin Road, Suite 903; Durham, NC 27705