All of Us Research Program Taps Andrea Ramirez, M.D., M.S., as Chief Data Officer 

May 11, 2022
Portrait of Andrea Ramirez

Dr. Andrea Ramirez

New role will maximize analytic and scientific data value for the precision medicine effort

The National Institutes of Health’s All of Us Research Program has announced the selection of Andrea H. Ramirez, M.D., M.S., as chief data officer. In this new role, Andrea will lead the recently-established Office of Data and Analytics to centralize program data strategy, derive data-driven insights to guide All of Us, and oversee efforts to ensure research data quality.

“Since launching national enrollment in 2018, All of Us has evolved and progressed tremendously. We have increased the number of partners supporting our mission. We’ve added new data types donated by participants for research use. Most importantly, we’ve sharpened our focus and goals for the future,” said Ramirez. “I am looking forward to harnessing data and unifying analytics from throughout the program to help advance the next phase of program growth.”

Andrea will also help ensure data quality, with a particular focus on designing processes for quality assurance at the time of data collection through its use by the program and researchers. In addition, she will oversee research demonstration projects. 

“With the size of our cohort and the audacity of our mission, it’s critical that we make decisions based on data and produce the high-quality data necessary to drive discovery. Ensuring data quality is a huge undertaking that requires a forward-looking focus on how data will be used in the future,” said Josh Denny, M.D., M.S., chief executive officer of All of Us. “Andrea brings a dual perspective as both a researcher and a clinician that makes her well-suited for this role. She knows firsthand what researchers need to do their best work, as well as how their discoveries stand to change medical practice.”

Before joining NIH, Andrea was a physician scientist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee, where she studied the genomics of metabolic disorders and precision diabetes care. While there, she also led the data science team at the All of Us Data and Research Center. Prior to that, she participated in the Physician Scientist Development Program at the National Human Genome Research Institute in the laboratory of Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D. There she studied extracellular RNA signaling in metabolic disease and therapy and completed a joint clinical fellowship in endocrinology, diabetes, and metabolism at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. 

She earned her Bachelor of Science in biochemistry from North Carolina State University and her Doctorate of Medicine from Duke University School of Medicine before completing her residency at Vanderbilt University in internal medicine and receiving a Master of Science degree in clinical investigation during a clinical pharmacology fellowship in the laboratory of Dan M. Roden, M.D.. She continues to maintain a clinical practice in pharmacogenomics, atypical diabetes, and general endocrinology. 

Under her leadership, the new Office of Data and Analytics will carry out its work across three branches—data governance, statistical analysis, and analytics. This office will help build the capacity for increased data analytics and integration needs and help All of Us maintain high data quality standards. Andrea expects the office to establish a data governance system, while enhancing and improving analytics capabilities to inform decisions with data-driven insights.

All of Us aims to engage at least 1 million participants from across the United States to reflect the nation’s diversity, including groups who have been historically underrepresented in biomedical research. With rich and evolving data contributed by participants over time—through surveys, electronic health records, biosamples, wearable technologies, data linkages, and more—the All of Us research platform supports researchers from different backgrounds to make discoveries that lead to new prevention strategies and treatments for foundational health challenges.

All of Us, the All of Us logo, and “The Future of Health Begins with You” are service marks of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.