Paul A. Harris, PhD, is professor of biomedical informatics and biomedical engineering who has approximately 20 years’ experience working in the field of clinical research informatics.  Dr. Harris earned his doctorate in Biomedical Engineering from Vanderbilt University in 1996 and now serves as Director for Vanderbilt’s Office of Research Informatics.

Dr. Harris devised and created REDCap (www.projectredcap.org), a research data collection and management software platform that has seen widespread adoption by 2,130 academic and non-profit institutions in 108 countries.  He also created and runs a national program (www.researchmatch.org) designed to ‘match’ volunteers wishing to volunteer for studies and scientists recruiting participants for research at any CTSA institution.  The ResearchMatch program is currently serving 106,000 volunteers and 4,300 researchers across 133 academic institutions.

Dr. Harris is interested in problems associated with: 1. novel strategies for data collection, analysis and dissemination; 2. participant recruitment, engagement and return of value; and 3. software collaboration and dissemination models.  He currently serves as PI for the NIH/NCATS Recruitment Innovation Center, co-PI for the PCORI Mid-South CDRN, Informatics Team Lead for the NIH Precision Medicine Initiative Pilot and Data and Research Core, and a leadership council member for the NIH/NCATS CTSA Informatics Domain Task Force.