Chris directs BUMC's Application Services unit, and is the Assistant Provost for BUMC IT.
He joined Boston University in 1993 as Network & Systems Administrator for International Health at SPH. He was an inaugural member of BUMC IT after its formation in 1997, focused on client services and systems administration. Shortly thereafter he created and managed Business and Research Systems in support of the Business & Financial Affairs offices. In 2003 Chris formed and directed BUMC Application Services which supports students, faculty and staff across educational, research and administrative functions. He has served as interim executive director of BUMC IT on two different occasions, most recently during the global pandemic, from March 2020-March 2021.
His teams implemented Aperture as the initial Medical Campus space system in support of the university F&A proposal. They created the BUMC sponsored program data system, modernized the BUMC faculty database & tracking system, created the first electronic budget application and merit systems for BUMC, and the original Grants.gov submission process for researchers at the Medical Campus.
The Application Services unit delivers web-based applications, integration services and specialized data and reporting services in a number of areas:
• Faculty projects include annual review, appointment & promotion tracking, the BUMC external and international activity report, the BU/BMC faculty checklist, and volunteer faculty appointment onboarding
• Research and scholarly collaboration projects include BU Profiles, ORCID, the Framingham Heart research application, an online CReM iPSC catalog, research core facilities management support, WebCAMP, the TOTAL grant, the RURAL ancillary study, BioRender signup, DOM’s PairMe, the NIH RePORTER repository, the PI lookup system, and more.
• Student and applicant projects include graduation admissions, financial aid and pathways for the MD, MD/PhD and PA programs, the Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine Registrar & Student Affairs system, support for the MedHub graduate medical education system, enrichment opportunities for students, end and middle of year clinical skills assessments, tutoring, the white coat ceremony, the clerkship directory, the ERAS residency supplement system, the 4th year elective add/drop, the Med Student Research Opportunities system, and others.
• Reporting and survey support efforts include the BUMC space report and BU WebSpace survey, the AAMC faculty salary survey, the US News & World Report survey, academic grant credit reporting, BUMG/FPP reporting, BUworks SAP reporting, and other strategic efforts.
• Other projects support continuing medical education, staff evaluation, corporate communication announcements, committee membership management, Hear My Name, the BUMC OUT & Ally list, and facilities management.
In his free time, Chris enjoys hiking, especially in Yosemite, running around with his two Australian Shepherds, and enjoying Peruvian cuisine with his wife, Angie.
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility
I look at my own contributions as small - there are so many others doing truly amazing work in the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility (DEIA) space.
Boston University Medical Campus (BUMC) and Boston Medical Center (BMC) have long emphasized the important of compassion and inclusion within the pursuit of education, innovation and clinical care. The school of medicine is committed to diverse students, trainees, and faculty in medicine, with a focus on treating disadvantaged and underserved populations. BMC is the largest safety net hospital in New England. Our medical education leaders have emphasized the hope that medical students will become great clinicians, but also agents of change in health care and equity. I am fortunate to support such a great community.
I have been heavily influenced by the BU culture. I spent my early years working with Dr. William Bicknell in International Health. I learned how privileged I, a white male born and raised in the United States, had been. Bill’s mission was to prioritize the disadvantaged, underserved, and vulnerable. He pushed to advance public health in more than 60 countries – to eliminate poverty, inequity, and preventable illness and death. During my time there, I met people from every corner of the globe. Not just faces, many became lifelong friends. They opened my eyes to the world. Many came from countries where they were fighting for better health care while simultaneously fighting against persecution. One of my close friends from that time died years later in a plane crash in Afghanistan, where she had been helping the country rebuild its health system. This in a place where women were denied rights, healthcare for them was virtually inaccessible, and where rape and violence against women was rampant. Yet there she was – an agent for change in a country that was not even her own. What I have done will always pale in comparison to the sacrifices so many other have made.
For my part, I served on BU's data governance working group which helped recommend a broad set of diversity and inclusion standards, including race/ethnicity, sex/gender identity, sexual orientation, and pronouns. My team created the first application leveraging our extensive race/ethnicity sub-classification, expanding beyond the six federally approved choices. This allowed faculty applicants for school of medicine positions to classify themselves into nearly 80 categories, and better represent their personal identity.
Within BU Profiles, we gave the community the ability to add pronouns in 2020 and the diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility narrative in 2022. Our development team created the BUMC OUT & Ally List for the BUMC and BMC communities to build connections and network around LGBTQ+ issues more broadly. We helped BUMC schools add relevant DEIA/DEIJ questions in faculty annual review as foundational elements of their mission and values, ones not intended to be evaluative, but rather for self-reflection and catalyzation of information to help schools move their DEIA/DEIJ missions forward.
Information Services & Technology (IS&T) is committed to DEIA through meaningful initiatives which contribute to the structural changes described in Boston University’s Commitment to Diversity and the 2030 Strategic Plan. As a department, IS&T is carrying out strategic DEIA initiatives with focus in four major areas:
• Language, training, and education
• Recruiting, hiring, promotion, and retention
• Strategy and organizational implementation
• Community, culture, and change
While there is so much more to be done, I believe if everyone tried to contribute more, a lot of good can come from it.
Senior Director, BUMC Application Services
Boston University
Information Services & Technology
Publications listed below are automatically derived from MEDLINE/PubMed and other
sources, which might result in incorrect or missing publications. Faculty can
login
to make corrections and additions.
This graph shows the total number of publications by year, by first, middle/unknown,
or last author.
Overview:
• Over 4,500 BU Profiles
• 4,000+ unique visitors per week; 25% on mobile devices. 84% US, 16% overseas
• 70% active faculty (mostly BUMC; we have about 200 CRC faculty)
• 30% are previous or current BU postdocs, fellows or predoctoral trainees, or active staff
• We try to leverage existing data to reduce burden (SAP HR data, sponsored programs data from BU & BMC, PR from BU and BMC for media mentions, etc)
• Over 98% of the publications are brought in automatically via weekly disambiguation using National Library of Medicine data
• BUMC IT typically does initial data curation of each profile before asking people to review
• Use Help to request a profile, get help or make suggestions
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Enhancements for 2023 expected to include:
• Group Profiles for assessing contributions of training cohorts, team science investigators, etc (T32s, ARCs, grant proposals, org entities like centers)
• Enhancing the publication module - citation counts, journal headings, and sorting options. Authors bolded, coauthor links enabled on publication lists.
• Add HTML formatting capability on narratives such as the overview tab, mentoring and DEIA (linking, bolding, list and bullets, etc)
• Performance Improvements on page loads with lots of content
• and more!
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Useful websites:
• profiles.bu.edu
• www.bu.edu/orcid
• hearmyname.bu.edu
• https://www.bumc.bu.edu/facdev-medicine/all-bumc/faculty-development-diversity-seminar-series/