Betsy Humphreys, MLS

Betsy L. Humphreys retired as the National Library of Medicine's (NLM) Deputy Director in 2017, having been appointed to that position in 2005. From April 1, 2015 - August 14, 2016, she also served as NLM's Acting Director. As Deputy Director, she shared responsibility with the Director for overall program development, program evaluation, policy formulation, direction and coordination of all Library activities. Ms. Humphreys also coordinated NLM's extensive activities related to health data standards, serving as US Member and founding Chair of the General Assembly of the International Health Terminology Standards Organisation. She contributed to the development of NIH and HHS policy on a range of matters, including health information technology, public access to research results, clinical trial registration and results reporting, and data science. Ms. Humphreys joined the NLM in 1973 and held a series of increasingly responsible positions, including Chief, Technical Services Division, Deputy Associate Director for Library Operations, Assistant Director for Health Services Research Information, and Associate Director for Library Operations, before being appointed Deputy Director of NLM. From 1986 to 2006, she also directed the Unified Medical Language System (UMLS) project, which produces knowledge sources to support advanced processing, retrieval, and integration of information from disparate electronic information sources. Ms. Humphreys is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine (previously the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences), a Fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics, a Fellow of the Medical Library Association (MLA), and a founding Fellow of the International Academy of Health Sciences Informatics. She has received a number of awards, including the Morris F. Collen Award of Excellence from the American College of Medical Informatics, the Marcia C. Noyes Award which is MLAís highest honor, the first Cornerstone Award conferred by the Association of Academic Health Sciences Libraries, the President's Meritorious and Distinguished Rank Awards, Senior Executive Service, the Smith College Medal, and SNOMED Internationalís Lifetime Achievement Award and Award of Excellence.