Hongfang Liu Joins Dell Medical School To Lead New Department, Serve as Chief Translational AI and Informatics Officer

At Mayo Clinic, Liu led major initiatives in biomedical informatics, cancer data science and digital health, including development of enterprise-scale data platforms and the Clinical Language Analytics Service Infrastructure, an AI-driven clinical natural language processing platform that supported more than 800 research projects and over 50 NIH-funded studies.

She also led the internationally recognized Open Health Natural Language Processing consortium, which established widely adopted open-source tools for biomedical NLP and accelerated AI applications in real-world healthcare settings worldwide.

Since joining UTHealth Houston in 2023 through a prestigious CPRIT Established Investigator Award, Liu has expanded leadership across major UT System AI and real-world data initiatives. Through the UT System Health Intelligence Platform, she leads collaborative efforts to establish unified data infrastructure across all UT health institutions and directs the UT REAL-Health AI Pilot Program to accelerate responsible AI deployment in healthcare.

Liu has maintained continuous federal funding since 2003 and currently serves as a principal leader of ReCARDO , a $27.2 million National Institute on Aging initiative focused on harmonizing real-world clinical data to accelerate Alzheimer's disease and dementia research across 10 leading institutions nationwide.

Liu has made significant contributions across bioinformatics, software engineering, big data analytics, cancer research, epidemiology, clinical research and healthcare delivery. She is a pioneer in developing machine learning and big data techniques for biomedical and clinical natural language processing - a branch of AI that focuses on empowering computers with the ability to understand text.

In her role as CTAIIO, Liu will provide strategic academic leadership across clinical care, research, education and operational innovation, helping integrate AI throughout UT Dell Medical Center and Dell Medical School.

"Healthcare is entering a transformative era where artificial intelligence, computational medicine and human-centered care must evolve together," Liu said. "UT Austin and Dell Medical School have a unique opportunity to build a truly integrated academic health ecosystem that combines technological innovation, interdisciplinary collaboration, discovery science and clinical excellence to improve health for individuals and populations alike.