Paul Halverson, founding dean of the Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health at IUPUI, has named William Tierney, MD, as associate dean of population health and health outcomes.

Dr. Tierney brings a wealth of public health experience to the role. He joins the school after serving as the founding chair of the Department of Population Health at Dell Medical School at The University of Texas at Austin.

“Dr. Tierney’s passion, expertise and experience in health will be an unparalleled asset to the school,” said Halverson. “Our mission is centered on protecting and improving the health of Indiana. Dr. Tierney is well positioned for this new role and will bring the leadership qualities needed to ensure the school’s capacity to respond to new opportunities.”

In this new role, Dr. Tierney will serve as the chief liaison of the school with the diverse public health, health systems, academic groups and other stakeholders in the Indianapolis area. He will also hold an appointment as a clinical professor in global health.

“I am honored to take on this vital and challenging position with the Fairbanks School of Public Health,” Tierney said. “I welcome this opportunity to improve health outcomes for all Hoosiers. I have been fortunate the serve at Indiana University prior to this role and I look forward to being able to do more to enhance the efforts of school, campus and university in advancing Indiana’s health.”

Previously, Dr. Tierney spent 36 years at Indiana University and the Regenstrief Institute, where he led the implementation and study of electronic medical records and health information technologies. In 2010, he assumed the roles of president and CEO of the Regenstrief Institute, associate dean for comparative effectiveness research at the Indiana University School of Medicine and chairman of the Department of Internal Medicine for Eskenazi Health, the nation’s fourth-largest safety-net health system, where he practiced for more than 35 years as a primary care physician, emergency physician and hospitalist. He also served as the founding director of informatics and research for the Academic Model Providing Access to Healthcare (AMPATH), a 30-year collaboration of more than 20 North American universities with universities in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.

Dr. Tierney received his medical degree from Indiana University School of Medicine. He is a member of the National Academy of Medicine, a master of the American College of Physicians and fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics (for which he is the immediate past-President), the Royal College of Physicians–London, and the International Academy of Health Sciences Informatics.