James Anderson, PhD

A Johns Hopkins-trained engineer with degrees in chemical engineering, operations research, and industrial engineering, Professor Anderson received his PhD in education and sociology at Hopkins in 1966. He joined the faculty at Purdue University in 1970 and has been a full professor of medical sociology there since 1974. Since 1994, he has also codirected the Rural Center for AIDS/STD (Sexually Transmitted Disease) Prevention, a joint effort between Purdue and Texas A&M Universities. Dr. Anderson's work has examined the social, organizational, and ethical issues that determine success or failure of medical informatics applications. He has also developed and demonstrated a number of quantitative methodologies (including computer simulation, social network analysis, clustering, and structural equation modeling) that can be used to assess the effectiveness and outcomes of informatics applications. The three books that he has edited or authored in the field of medical informatics have been among the first comprehensive efforts to explore social, organizational, and ethical issues, and evaluation methods in informatics. The results of his research have had a practical impact on policymakers. For example, the Nursing Stress Scale he developed has been used widely in the United States and in at least ten other countries. It has been translated and used in Japan as well. Professor Anderson has been a frequent contributor to AMIA conferences, and the excellence of his work has been recognized through awards from AMIA, its predecessor the American Association for Medical Systems and Information (AAMSI), and the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC). He has also provided leadership by helping to organize and by chairing two AMIA Working Groups (the Ethical, Legal and Social Issues and the Quality Improvement Working Groups). ACMI recognizes Dr. Anderson for his expertise and influence in medical informatics and his significant contributions to our understanding of the social and organizational influences that characterize the success or failure of innovations in our field.