Joel Saltz

Dr. Joel Saltz is a leader in research on advanced information technologies for large scale data science and biomedical/scientific research. He has developed innovative pathology informatics methods, including: the first published whole slide virtual microscope system; pioneering pathology computer-aided diagnosis techniques; and methods for decomposing pathology images into features and linking those features to cancer “omics”, response to treatment and outcome. He has broken new ground in big data through development of the filter-stream based DataCutter system, the map-reduce style Active Data Repository and the inspector-executor runtime compiler framework. He has also been an active contributor in clinical informatics, having developed predictive models for hospital readmissions, point of care laboratory testing quality assurance systems, decision support systems for electrophoresis interpretation and graphical user interfaces to support clinical data warehouse queries. Dr. Saltz has been a pioneer in establishing the field of biomedical informatics; he founded and built two highly successful departments of biomedical informatics, one at Ohio State University and one at Emory University. In 2013, he came to Stony Brook as Vice President for Clinical Informatics and Founding Department Chair of Biomedical Informatics – to create a living laboratory for biomedical informatics and to create a third unique biomedical informatics department dually housed in the School of Medicine and the College of Engineering. Dr. Saltz is trained both as a computer scientist and as a physician through the MSTP program at Duke University. He has deep experience in computer science, having served on the computer science faculties at Yale University and the University of Maryland. He completed his residency in clinical pathology at Johns Hopkins University and he is a practicing, board-certified clinical pathologist.
 

 

Dr. Saltz is a leader in research on advanced information technologies for large scale data analytics, biomedical and scientific research. He has developed innovative clinical informatics systems including the first published whole slide virtual microscope system and leading edge clinical data warehouse frameworks. He has spearheaded several multi-disciplinary efforts creating cutting-edge tools and middleware components for the anagement, analysis, and integration of heterogeneous biomedical data. Dr. Saltz broke new ground with middleware systems that target distributed and high-end systems including the filter-stream based DataCutter system, the map-reduce style Active Data Repository and the inspector-executor runtime compiler framework.
Dr. Saltz currently leads two major application initiatives. The first is to develop large scale data management and analysis systems integrating “omics”, Pathology, Radiology and clinical information. His approach consists of closely coordinated efforts in image analysis, machine learning, database design and high end computing. These efforts leverage and extend tools and methods he developed through years of funded projects supported by a wide range of institutes and agencies including NCI, NLM, NIBIB, NSF, DARPA, AFOSR, NASA, DOD and DOE to develop innovative techniques, methodologies, algorithms and software systems to support integrative data analyses, large scale digital microscopy, high-performance computing, data management, and data federation . He targets cloud, cluster, GPU and Leadership Scale platforms.
The second focus is to develop data analytic methods that integrate and analyze information from multiple complementary clinical, financial and operational sources with the goal of optimizing quality and efficiency of health care systems and to support population health efforts. Stony Brook Biomedical Informatics serves to integrate academics and innovation into the fabric of operations at Stony Brook Medicine. Our dual goals are to develop innovative algorithms, methods and software and to facilitate the fulfillment of the Stony Brook Medicine mission to deliver world-class, compassionate healthcare to patients.