W
e are delighted to announce the promotion of Patricia Kovatch to Dean for Scientific Computing and Data at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Professor Kovatch has created and built an outstanding high-performance computing and data ecosystem program at Mount Sinai that contributes significantly to the productivity and success of our research programs.
As a Dean, Professor Kovatch will accelerate artificial intelligence and machine learning approaches through Mount Sinai’s private-cloud/supercomputer, with co-located multi-scale data sets and software tools. In addition to the Data Warehouse, these include the Data Ark data commons and the Image Research Warehouse. Building on three supercomputer awards that she secured from the Office of the Director of the National
Institutes of Health, she will strive to make data ever more findable, accessible, interoperable, reusable, and reproducible, and will develop a software strategy to facilitate the discovery and repurposing of internally developed software for research. Professor Kovatch will continue her partnerships throughout Mount Sinai, e.g., with the Clinical Intelligence Center, the Department of Medicine’s Division of Data Driven and Digital Medicine, the BioMedical Engineering and Imaging Institute, and the Office of the Chief Research Informatics Officer.
Recruited to Mount Sinai in 2011 as Associate Dean for Scientific Computing, Professor Kovatch was promoted to Senior Associate Dean for Scientific Computing and Data Science in 2017. The Scientific Computing and Data facility led by Professor Kovatch aims to enable and accelerate biomedical discovery through collaborative research encompassing high-performance computing, biomedical informatics, and data science. More than 5,000 internal users take advantage of our Minerva, Big Omics Data Engine 2, and COVID-19 and Translational Science private-cloud/supercomputers. These are integrated with vast internal data resources for clinical research and clinical trials, including the Mount Sinai Data Warehouse, the REDCap and eRAP electronic data capture systems, and the COVID-19 electronic health record data sets. The team’s collaborative efforts have been integral to growing Mount Sinai’s research portfolio and enabling more than 1,200 publications.
With a primary academic appointment in Genetics and Genomic Sciences and a secondary appointment in Pharmacological Sciences, Professor Kovatch is one of the Multiple Principal Investigators for the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s Post-Acute Sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 Infection Initiative, for which the School has been selected as a Phase 1 participant. Her synergistic approaches have enabled new funding pathways, such as the Human Health Exposure Analysis Resource Data Center supported by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences; she serves as Director for the Data Repository and Management Core for the Center.
Prior to joining Mount Sinai, she built and led the National Institute for Computational Sciences of the University of Tennessee at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. In November 2009, she deployed what was then the world’s third fastest machine for the National Science Foundation.
Externally, Professor Kovatch is an elected member of the Informatics Lead Team, which guides all Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSAs) in the United States. She sits on the Board of Directors of NYSERNet, a not-for-profit organization that provides customized, progressive, and affordable end-to end data and networking technology solutions for research and educational efforts at member institutions.
