Meet the Office Chief

Michael J. Ackerman received his Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, in Biomedical Engineering. After graduation he served as a research physiologist in the Hyperbaric Medicine and Physiology Department, Naval Medical Research Institute, where he studied the effects of the hyperbaric environment on neurophysiology and behavior. He later became head of the Institute's Biomedical Engineering and Computing Branch responsible for the application of computers to real time medical data analysis and the control and monitoring of diving systems. Dr. Ackerman came to the National Library of Medicine in 1987. He served as the Chief of the Educational Technology Branch of the Lister Hill National Center for Biomedical Communications, applying interactive technology to medical education, and as the Associate Director for Specialized Information Services responsible for the Library's non-bibliographic data bases. He is currently NLM's Assistant Director for High Performance Computing and Communications, providing guidance for NLM's telemedicine, distance collaboratory, advanced networking and imaging interests. He holds academic appointments as an Associate Professor in Computer Medicine at George Washington University and as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Medical Informatics at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. He has published a book, and over 170 papers and book chapters.

Dr. Ackerman is active in the field of medical informatics. He was a charter member and served as Treasurer of the American Association for Medical Systems and Informatics (AAMSI). He was a member of the Board of Directors of the Symposium for Computer Applications in Medical Care (SCAMC) from 1976 to 1988 and served as its president. He was the program chair for the 9th SCAMC and Finance Chair for Medinfo'86. He is a founding member of the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA), and served as Treasurer, Secretary, chair of the Meetings Committee, and as a member of the Board of Directors. He was co-chair of the 1992 Health Science Communications Association (HeSCA) Annual Meeting, a consultant to the Radiological Society of North America's Electronic Communications Committee, a member of the American Physical Therapy Association's Advisory Panel on the Resource Center for Research and the United States Pharmacopeial Convention's Advisory Panel on Consumer Interest and Health Education. He was elected a Founding Fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) in 1992 and a Fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics (ACMI) in 1985. He currently serves on the Editorial Boards of Telemedicine & e-Health, the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, and the IEEE Transactions on Information Technology in Biomedicine.

Dr. Ackerman's work has been recognized through numerous awards including the 1998 Johns Hopkins University Ranice W. Crosby Distinguished Achievement Award, 1997 Government Technology Leadership Award, 1996 National Institutes of Health Director's Award, the 1996 Friends of the National Library of Medicine Public Service Award, the 1996 Satava Award for Medical Applications of Virtual Reality, the 1995 Public Health Service Special Recognition Award, the 1994 American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering Dedicated Service Award, the 1993 and 2003 American Medical Informatics Association President's Awards, the 1993 Health Sciences Communications Association Special Achievement Award, and the 1992 National Institutes of Health Award of Merit. His work on the Visible Human Project was nominated as a finalist for a 1995 Discover Magazine Award for Technological Innovation in Software and a 1996 Smithsonian Award for Information Technology.