PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Yves A. Lussier

Yves A. Lussier is a physician and biomedical informatician whose work spans natural language processing for biology, precision medicine and AI in oncology. Born in Montreal, he earned a Bachelor of Applied Science and an MD at the University of Sherbrooke, co-founded Development Purkinje, and trained at Columbia University, where Carol Friedman was among his mentors. At The University of Chicago, he coauthored PhenoGO in 2006, a system that uses natural language processing to assign phenotypic context to Gene Ontology annotations, and he was later founding director of the Center for Biomedical Informatics and Biostatistics at the University of Arizona. Since 2021, he is Chair of Biomedical Informatics at the University of Utah School of Medicine; the American College of Artificial Intelligence in Medicine elected him a Fellow in 2025, and he chairs the department's AI in Oncology workshop at AIME 2026.

Now at
University of Utah School of Medicine
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Timeline

  1. By 1994

    Sherbrooke and Development Purkinje

    Born in Montreal, he earns a Bachelor of Applied Science and an MD at the University of Sherbrooke. In 1990, as a family medicine resident at the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Sherbrooke, he sees the hospital implement electronic health records. From 1990 to 1994, he is Vice President of Research at Development Purkinje Inc., a health care technology company he co-founds.

  2. 1998–2006

    Training and teaching at Columbia

    From 1998 to 2001, he is a science fellow in biomedical informatics at Columbia University, where Carol Friedman, James Cimino and Edward Shortliffe mentor him. From 2001 to 2006, he is an assistant professor in Columbia's Departments of Biomedical Informatics and Medicine. In 2004, he is the faculty speaker at Columbia's PhD convocation.

  3. 2005

    A fellowship in medical informatics

    In 2005, he is elected a Fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics.

  4. 2006–2011

    PhenoGO at Chicago

    From 2006 to 2011, he directs the Center for Biomedical Informatics at The University of Chicago and serves as associate director for informatics of its Cancer Center. In 2006, he coauthors PhenoGO with Carol Friedman and colleagues, a system that assigns phenotypic context to Gene Ontology annotations with natural language processing. By 2009, the expanded PhenoGO database covers over 600,000 phenotypic contexts across eleven species, built with the BioMedLEE language-processing system.

  5. 2013–2021

    Founding the Arizona informatics center

    In December 2013, he joins the University of Arizona Health Sciences from the University of Illinois at Chicago as professor of medicine, associate vice president and chief knowledge officer. He is founding director of its Center for Biomedical Informatics and Biostatistics and builds programs in biomedical informatics, computational genomics and precision health. In 2016, he is one of ten American scientists invited to the White House for the Precision Medicine Initiative Summit.

  6. 2021

    Chairing Utah's biomedical informatics

    In February 2021, he becomes Chair of the Department of Biomedical Informatics at the University of Utah School of Medicine, succeeding interim chair Karen Eilbeck. At the announcement, he says machine learning and nanotechnologies impacting medicine provide a glimpse of the coming progress.

  7. 2025

    A fellowship in medical AI

    In 2025, he chairs the organizing committee of the Artificial Intelligence in Oncology workshop at AIME 2025. In October 2025, the University of Utah's Department of Biomedical Informatics announces his election as a Fellow of the American College of Artificial Intelligence in Medicine. In December 2025, on the Risk Never Sleeps podcast, he discusses AI techniques that draw meaning from both massive and minimal datasets, including N-of-1 precision genomics.

  8. As of October 2026

    Utah chair and oncology AI workshop

    He is Chair of Biomedical Informatics at the University of Utah School of Medicine. He chairs the organizing committee of the Artificial Intelligence in Oncology workshop in the department's AIME 2026 program.

Career

  1. Since 2021University of Utah School of MedicineChair
  2. Until 2013University of Illinois Chicago
  3. 2013–2021University of Arizona Health SciencesProfessor of Medicine, Associate Vice President, and Chief Knowledge Officer
  4. 2006–2011University of ChicagoDirector
  5. 1998–2001Columbia UniversityScience Fellow in Biomedical Informatics
  6. From 1990Sherbrooke University Hospital CentreFamily Medicine Resident
  7. 1990–1994Development Purkinje Inc.Co-founder and Vice President of Research

Education

  1. University of SherbrookeBachelor of Applied Science

From the biography.

  1. More people shaping AI studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology than at any other institutionIncludes University of Utah. We estimate where the people shaping AI studied and where their careers led. Massachusetts Institute of Technology leads with 467 former students, including 291 recorded doctorates.
  2. The company share of AI researchers’ top papers was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974Includes University of Utah. We estimate where the people shaping AI worked when their most-cited papers appeared: the company share was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974, and Google led all organizations in 2020–2024.
  3. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other universityIncludes University of Utah. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other university. We compare doctorate and 5+ year employment links, career timing and current workplaces for 187 major-prize and 1,111 best-paper winners.
  4. The median h-index is 48 at universities and 14 at frontier AI labsIncludes Columbia University. The median h-index is 48 at universities and 14 at frontier AI labs. We compare publishing careers, recent citations, dual appointments and job moves across 2,420 university researchers and 308 frontier-lab researchers.

Colleagues

People named in this biography, and people with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

Photo: We have no published photo of Yves A. Lussier yet. Send us a free-licensed photo.

  1. U of U Health Names New Chair of Biomedical Informatics at School of Medicine healthcare.utah.edu. Checked 20 October 2026.
  2. Pioneering a New Era of Biomedical Informatics uofuhealth.utah.edu. Checked 20 October 2026.
  3. Letter From The Chair, Yves Lussier, MD, Fellow ACMI medicine.utah.edu. Checked 20 October 2026.
  4. Renowned Bioinformatician Joins UA azbigmedia.com. Checked 20 October 2026.
  5. Yves A. Lussier en.wikipedia.org. Checked 20 October 2026.
  6. PhenoGO: Assigning phenotypic context to gene ontology annotations with natural language processing experts.arizona.edu. Checked 20 October 2026.
  7. PhenoGO: an integrated resource for the multiscale mining of clinical and biological data pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. Checked 20 October 2026.
  8. Health Sciences Leadership Announcement healthsciences.arizona.edu. Checked 20 October 2026.
  9. Artificial Intelligence in Oncology: Committee (AIME 2025) medicine.utah.edu. Checked 20 October 2026.
  10. Congratulations to Dr. Yves Lussier — Fellow of the American College of Artificial Intelligence in Medicine medicine.utah.edu. Checked 20 October 2026.
  11. Episode #168. How AI Is Unlocking Breakthroughs From Both Massive And Minimal Data, with Yves Lussier podcast.censinet.com. Checked 20 October 2026.
  12. Artificial Intelligence in Oncology: Committee (AIME 2026) medicine.utah.edu. Checked 20 October 2026.
  13. Yves Lussier | Spencer Fox Eccles School of Medicine medicine.utah.edu. Checked 20 October 2026.