David Albers Elected to American College of Medical Informatics Class of 2025

David Albers, PhD, associate professor of biomedical informatics at the CU Anschutz School of Medicine, has been elected to the American College of Medical Informatics (ACMI) class of 2025. Albers and 23 other new fellows will be inducted into ACMI at the 2025 American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) Annual Symposium on Nov. 16.  

“Being elected to ACMI is a wonderful and surprising honor,” said Albers. “I am grateful to my collaborators, mentors and mentees for all the support and to the ACMI community for electing me as a fellow.” 

The ACMI is a college of elected fellows who have made significant and sustained contributions to the field of biomedical and health informatics. To be elected as a fellow, individuals must demonstrate major contributions to the biomedical and health informatics fields, achieve national or international recognition and be committed to advancing ACMI’s charitable, scientific, literary and educational goals.  

“ACMI is the highest honor in medical informatics,” added Tell Bennett, MD, MS, vice chair of clinical informatics at the CU Anschutz Department of Biomedical Informatics (DBMI). “In ACMI’s 40-year history, only a few CU faculty have been elected.” 

An Interdisciplinary Journey to Informatics

With a background in mathematical and experimental physics, pure mathematics and economics, Albers focuses on problems that evolve over time and builds models that reflect the mechanics of how systems work. His early informatics work explored the idea that healthcare data are shaped by dynamic and complex processes, which can be studied and modeled to improve understanding. 

Drawing from both mathematics and real-world data, his research spans multiple disciplines, often uncovering connections between specific problems. He is committed to applying his skills to projects that have the potential to directly improve people’s health. 

“From the beginning, my career has been interdisciplinary, and after my PhD and early postdoc work focused on dynamical systems and machine learning, I was driven to science and mathematics for service,” said Albers, “Informatics, being deeply interdisciplinary, computational and focused on improving human health, was a natural home for me.” 

Advancing Health Through Computational Modeling

As a computational methodologist, Albers has contributed to a wide range of health-related research projects. His work in digital twin development and application has been diverse, spanning multiple areas of personalized medicine. Separately, he has developed models for glucose-insulin dynamics in intensive care and type II diabetes, advancing understanding of metabolism and vascular health to support improved self-management. In neurovascular physiology, particularly in the context of critical care for traumatic brain injury and stroke, he has developed new physiological models, applied machine learning to relate patient phenotypes to treatment effects and improved operational markers of neurovascular state.   

Albers has also advanced research on lung-ventilator systems, helping identify and reduce ventilator-related injuries by analyzing detailed breathing patterns. In reproductive health, he has built models to better understand the female endocrine system. 

His technical expertise includes developing new algorithms, optimization techniques and artificial intelligence (AI) tools to estimate complex models, from differential equations to optimal transport. Albers has applied these tools to solve clinical problems in collaboration with large, interdisciplinary teams. 

Notably, Albers helped design the CONCERN early warning system, which uses nursing documentation patterns to predict patient decline. This system is now being deployed in adult hospitals, with efforts underway to adapt it for pediatric care. He also contributed to the Phoenix Criteria, a machine learning–driven score for identifying sepsis in children, developed with input from a broad group of clinicians. 

Across all projects, Albers’ work combines insight into the mechanics of the underlying processes with advanced computational methods to improve health outcomes and the understanding of these complex systems. 

Shaping the Future of Biomedical Informatics

“This well-earned recognition highlights a deep commitment to advancing biomedical informatics and shaping the future of health through innovation and collaboration,” added Casey Greene, PhD, chair and professor of DBMI at CU Anschutz. 

As an ACMI Fellow, Albers joins a community of leaders shaping the future of biomedical informatics—where science, computation and compassion converge to transform care.