The Alliance for Nursing Informatics (ANI) celebrates the recognition of two of our esteemed colleagues as recipients of 2021 AMIA Signature Awards for significant contributions to the field of informatics: Karen Monsen, as the recipient of the Virginia K. Saba Informatics Award, and Maxim (Max) Topaz, as the recipient of the AMIA New Investigator Award.
The Virginia K. Saba Informatics Award recognizes an individual's distinguished career and significant impact on the care of patients and the discipline of nursing. The award honors a professional with exemplary principles and practices and a substantial record of contribution to the field of nursing informatics and demonstrated commitment to AMIA through membership. Criteria for this international award include characteristics and achievements of visionary leadership, global impact, and enduring contribution to nursing professional practice, education, administration, research, and/or health policy and demonstrated commitment to AMIA through membership. Virginia K. Saba, EdD, RN, was the first recipient of this award in 2005. We are honored to congratulate Karen A. Monsen, PhD, RN, FAMIA, FAAN, as the 2021 recipient of this Signature Award. At the time of this publication, we honor the recent passing of Dr Virginia K. Saba, in November 2021.
Karen A. Monsen is professor at the University of Minnesota School of Nursing; chair of the Population Health and Systems Cooperative; director of the Center for Nursing Informatics and the Omaha System Partnership research network; and coordinator of the Doctor of Nursing Practice Nursing Informatics specialty. She directs the Omaha System Partnership, an interprofessional practice-based research network. She is past chair of the AMIA Academic Forum and the Nursing Informatics Program Directors Community and an active member of the Nursing Informatics and Public Health Informatics Working Groups. Karen serves as a governing director in the ANI, representing the Omaha System Partnership.
The AMIA New Investigator Award recognizes an individual for early informatics contributions and significant scholarly contributions on the basis of scientific merit and research excellence. The criteria for the award are as follows: (1) significant scientific productivity in informatics prior to reaching eligibility for fellowship in the American College of Medical Informatics; (2) multiple significant scientific publications in journals (e.g., JAMIA) and proceedings; and (3) demonstrated commitment to AMIA through membership, as well as presentations at AMIA conferences, and/or publications in JAMIA. We are honored to congratulate Maxim (Max), PhD, RN, MA, as the 2021 recipient of this Signature Award.
Dr Max Topaz is the Elizabeth Standish Gill Associate Professor of Nursing at the Columbia University Medical Center. He is also affiliated with Columbia University Data Science Institute and the Center for Home Care Policy & Research at the Visiting Nurse Service of New York. His research focuses on data science, and he finds innovative ways to use the most recent technological breakthroughs, such as text or data mining, to improve human health. Dr Topaz's research motto is "Data for good." Dr Topaz is one of the pioneers in applying natural language processing on data generated by nurses. His current work focuses on developing natural language processing solutions to advance clinical decision making. Dr Topaz has been involved with health policy with national and international reach, including leadership (eg, chair of the Emerging Professionals Working Group of the International Medical Informatics Association) and health entrepreneurship). He earned his PhD degree as a Fulbright Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania and his master's and bachelor's degrees from the University of Haifa, Israel. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard Medical School and Brigham Women's Hospital. He also served as a senior lecturer at the School of Nursing, University of Haifa (Israel), where he was heading a health information technology laboratory. He has published more than 80 articles on topics related to health informatics and received numerous prestigious awards for his work.
From all of us in the ANI community and beyond, we extend our heartiest congratulations and applause for the international recognition for Karen and Max and gratitude for the contributions each has made to advancing the field of nursing and nursing informatics.