Piatt appointed chair of Department of Learning Health Sciences

Gretchen A. Piatt, Ph.D., M.P.H., has been appointed chair of the Department of Learning Health Sciences (DLHS) in the U-M Medical School, effective Sept. 1. The provost has provided interim approval of her appointment, and it will be reported at the September Board of Regents meeting. 

Piatt is a professor of learning health sciences in the medical school and professor of health behavior and health equity in the U-M School of Public Health. In addition, she serves as director of the Health Infrastructures and Learning Systems Graduate Education Program, focused on transforming health through learning health system approaches. She also is a member of the Precision Health Initiative, Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation, Michigan Institute for Clinical & Health Research (MICHR), and Caswell Diabetes Institute. 

Piatt earned her Ph.D. and Master of Public Health from the University of Pittsburgh before joining its medical school faculty as a research instructor in the Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism. She joined U-M as an assistant professor in 2011 and ascended through the ranks to professor in 2023.  

She is a highly successful scholar, recognized nationally and internationally, with expertise in designing, implementing, and evaluating community interventions aimed at improving health care delivery in ethnic minority and underserved populations with diabetes. She has been continuously federally funded in this area for more than 18 years, with a research portfolio exceeding $25 million, and she co-directs the Michigan Center for Diabetes Translational Research, one of seven diabetes translational science centers in the United States. 

Piatt has a strong teaching record and is committed to training a new generation of diverse, transdisciplinary learning health scientists with a focus on application and mastery of skills and content knowledge. She advises and mentors graduate students, medical students, and early-career faculty members. In 2023, she was recognized as a distinguished clinical and translational research mentor by MICHR.    

Outgoing and founding DLHS Chair Charles P. Friedman, Ph.D., who held the chair post for a decade, is returning to his teaching and research, pursuing his passion to promote learning health systems nationally and internationally, and advancing the research agenda of the Knowledge Systems Lab, which he directs.