The University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine has appointed Indian-origin physician-scientist Shyam Visweswaran chair of its Department of Biomedical Informatics, following his service as interim chair since November 2025.
Visweswaran is trained in artificial intelligence, biomedical informatics and clinical neurology. His research focuses on applying AI to clinical decision support, patient-specific modeling, causal discovery, research data warehousing and the development of clinical algorithms that perform reliably across diverse health care settings.
He joined the University of Pittsburgh faculty in 2007 and has since become a nationally recognized leader in using large-scale health data to improve clinical research and patient care. Effective February 2026, he was appointed UPMC Endowed Chair in Biomedical Informatics, an honor recognizing his contributions to research, scholarship and mentorship.
Visweswaran directs the Informatics Core for Pitt’s Clinical and Translational Science Institute. He is also a principal investigator for the NIH-funded Evolve to Next-Gen Accrual of Patients to Clinical Trials network, which connects electronic health records from more than 140 million patients across 57 academic health centers.
He founded and directs the Center for Clinical Artificial Intelligence, a collaboration involving the University of Pittsburgh, UPMC and Carnegie Mellon University. The center develops human-in-the-loop AI systems designed to support clinical judgment and advance more precise, data-informed care. Visweswaran has authored more than 200 peer-reviewed publications and book chapters.
He earned his medical degree from the Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research in India. He later completed graduate training in physiology and biophysics at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, neurology residency training at Boston Medical Center and a doctorate in intelligent systems at the University of Pittsburgh.
Visweswaran is a fellow of the American Medical Informatics Association, American College of Medical Informatics, Australasian Institute of Digital Health and International Academy of Health Sciences Informatics. He also holds issued and pending U.S. patents.
His appointment places an experienced clinical AI researcher at the head of a department focused on transforming complex biomedical data into practical knowledge for research and patient care.
Key Takeaways About Shyam Visweswaran
- He has been appointed chair of Pitt’s Department of Biomedical Informatics.
- His research focuses on clinical AI, decision support and personalized medicine.
- He directs Pitt’s Center for Clinical Artificial Intelligence.
- He has authored more than 200 peer-reviewed publications and book chapters.
- He is a fellow of four professional medical and health informatics organizations.
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