On Feb. 3, Christopher A. Harle, Ph.D., was named chief research information officer for UF Health. In this role, Harle will provide leadership around operations and governance of information technology that support research activities across the UF Health campus, including UF Health Shands Hospital, UF Health Jacksonville and associated practices. He will play a leadership role in strategy and operations around the UF Health Integrated Data Repository, part of the UF Clinical and Translational Science Institute, and in innovative uses of Epic to support clinical and translational research and the learning health system.

The health-focused chief research information officer role is new to UF and is emerging nationally as a way for academic health centers to address the challenges and opportunities clinical researchers face in the increasingly digitalized, data-intensive health care system.

Harle, who joined the department of health outcomes and biomedical informatics as a full professor in January, has a research focus in the design, adoption, use and value of health information systems. Previously, Harle served as an associate professor with the department of health policy and management at the Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health at Indiana University in Indianapolis, and he remains an affiliated scientist with the Regenstrief Institute’s Center for Biomedical Informatics in Indianapolis. Until 2015, he was an assistant professor with UF in the department of health services research, management and policy in the College of Public Health and Health Professions.

Harle holds a doctorate in information systems and management from Carnegie Mellon University’s H. John Heinz III College, and a bachelor’s degree and master’s degree in decision and information sciences from UF’s Warrington College of Business Administration.