Erich Huang (Duke Forge Center) Erich Huang, M.D., Ph.D., is co-director of Duke Forge (Duke University’s center for health data science) and Assistant Dean for Biomedical Informatics. Dr. Huang’s research interests span applied machine learning, research provenance, and data infrastructure. Projects include building data provenance tools funded by the NIH’s Big Data to Knowledge program and regulatory science research funded by the Burroughs Wellcome Foundation.
Dr. Huang is working on several applied machine learning applications, including “Deep Care Management” and CALYPSO. Deep Care Management is a highly interdisciplinary project with Duke Connected Care, Duke’s Accountable Care Organization, that integrates claims and electronic health record data for predicting unplanned admissions and risk–stratifying patients for case management. CALYPSO is a collaboration with the Department of Surgery for utilizing machine learning to predict surgical complications. Dr. Huang’s team is also building the data platform for the Department of Surgery’s “1000 Patient Project,” an intensive biospecimen and biomarker study aimed at determining how different types of surgery affect patient health and defining the biological responses to surgery.
As co-director of Duke Forge, Dr. Huang is working with Robert Califf, former Commissioner of the FDA, to build a data science culture and infrastructure across Duke University that focuses on actionable health data science. The Forge emphasizes scientific rigor, the awareness that technology does not supersede clinicians’ responsibilities and human relationship with their patients, and the role of data science in society.