Biography

Adam Dunn

Adam Dunn is a Professor of Biomedical Informatics at the University of Sydney, and Head of Biomedical Informatics and Digital Health in the Faculty of Medicine and Health. He leads multidisciplinary teams across a broad range of topics in biomedical informatics research and teaching, but specialises in applications of machine learning and natural language processing in health data. His key areas of interest are in public health informatics, especially online misinformation and health behaviours, and in clinical research informatics, especially tools for reducing bias and increasing the timeliness of evidence synthesis from clinical trials.

He has led or co-led research projects funded by the NHMRC, AHRQ, NLM/NIH, and WHO. He is the Convener of the Digital Health and Informatics Network at the University of Sydney, Affiliate Faculty with the Computational Health Informatics Program at Boston Children’s Hospital, and has held editorial roles with a range of medical journals and computer science conferences.

Current Major Affiliations

  • Theme Lead (cf. Head of Department) for Biomedical Informatics and Digital Health in the School of Medical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine and Health, the University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia.
  • Convener of the Digital Health and Informatics Network at the University of Sydney.
  • Affiliate Faculty (since 2018) with the Computational Health Informatics Program, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, United States.

Current research

  • Public health informatics: Applications of data science and natural language processing in public and preventive health. These include using social media data to estimate spatiotemporal patterns of the health information that people see and engage with online; tracking the spread and persistence of misinformation, disinformation, conspiracies, and false advertising; and developing and testing interventions that aim to improve health literacy, evidence-informed decision making, and health behaviours in the community.
  • Clinical research informatics: Applications of data science and natural language processing in the production, reporting, and synthesis of clinical evidence. These include measuring biases that affect clinical trial research reporting and synthesis; examining the impact of financial conflicts of interest and their disclosures on biomedical research; and developing new tools to facilitate access to and use of clinical trial registrations and structured results data.

Major current and past projects

  • WHO Infodemic Management (2021-2022) “Developing a toolkit for capturing online and offline information diets in ways that vary in granularity and participant effort”
  • NLM R01 (R01LM012976; 2019-2022) “Coupling results data from ClinicalTrials.gov and bibliographic databases to accelerate evidence synthesis”
  • NHMRC Project (APP1128968; 2017-2020) “Monitoring the gap between evidence and vaccination behaviour by sampling the location-specific consumption of health information from news and social media”
  • AHRQ R03 (HS024798-0; 2016-2017) “Developing Methods to Improve Systematic Reviews Using Clinical Trial Registries”
  • NHMRC Project (APP1045065; 2013-2015) “Using collaboration networks to measure bias and inefficiency in the production and translation of evidence about cardiovascular risk”

Affiliation history

  • Biomedical Informatics and Digital Health, School of Medical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine and Health, The University of Sydney (2020 – present)
  • Visiting Associate Professor, Department of Primary Care Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Malaya (2018, 2019, 2022)
  • Centre for Health Informatics at UNSW (2008-2014) and then Macquarie University (2014-2020)
  • International Alcoa Foundation Conservation & Sustainability Fellow at Curtin University  (2006-2008)
  • Undergraduate training (1999-2002) and PhD (2003-2006) at The University of Western Australia

Panels, committees, working groups, and other organisational units:

  • Convener, Digital Health and Informatics Network, Faculty of Medicine and Health, the University of Sydney (2022-present)
  • Membership Committee (2022-) and Interim Trustee (2023), Society for Research Synthesis Methodology (2018-)
  • The International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews (PROSPERO) Advisory Group (2022-present)
  • Co-Chair, Data and Informatics Enabler, Kolling Institute (2023)
  • Medical Research Future Fund 2021 Primary Healthcare Digital Innovations Grant Review Panel (2022)
  • NHMRC Postgraduate Scholarships Peer Review Committee for Health Services (2018)
  • EMCR Support Working Group, Faculty of Medicine and Health, University of Sydney (2022)
  • Academic Minimum Standards Working Group, Faculty of Medicine and Health, University of Sydney (2021)
  • Macquarie University Academic Senate (2019-2020)
  • Macquarie University Fellowship Panel (2015, 2016, 2017) and Co-chair (2018, 2019)
  • Macquarie University Research and Research Training Committee (2019-2021)
  • Macquarie University Freedom of Speech, Inquiry & Assembly Working Group (2019)
  • Macquarie University Research Enrichment Program Executive (2018-2019)
  • Macquarie University Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences Promotion Committee Level D (2019)
  • Macquarie University Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences Promotion Committee Level C (2017, 2018, 2019)
  • Macquarie University Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences Promotion Committee Level B (2015, 2019)
  • Macquarie University Research Infrastructure Panel (2015, 2016)
  • Macquarie University Postgraduate Research Fund Panel (2016)
  • AIHI’s HDR Committee member for the Centre for Health Informatics (2016-2018)
  • UNSW Postdoctoral Academy Committee and Sub-Committee (2012-2013)

Contact

My email address adam.dunn@sydney.edu.au. If you are a prospective postgraduate scholar and haven’t been in contact with me before, please include specific details of the kinds of projects you want to work on in your first email and tell me that you saw this message here on my website so I know you are thoughtfully engaged in your study.

Because of the diversity of my work, citations are generally a bit more reliable at Google Scholar. My Erdős number is four. You can find me on Twitter here: @adamgdunn. I don’t have any active accounts on any other social platforms.