Marylyn Ritchie was appointed as the inaugural vice dean of Artificial Intelligence and Computing for the Perelman School of Medicine effective April 1.
Ritchie's appointment was announced on March 28 by Perelman School of Medicine Dean Jonathan Epstein. In the role, Ritchie will help develop and implement AI strategies across Penn Medicine’s research, education, and healthcare delivery. She will also serve as an ambassador for AI connections across Penn's schools, hospitals, and centers.
"Dr. Ritchie is a valued colleague whose meaningful contributions have greatly enriched our PSOM community," Epstein wrote in the announcement. "I am grateful that she will be serving in this new and important role, and please join me in congratulating her on this appointment."
Ritchie serves as the director of Penn's Institute for Biomedical Informatics and Division of Informatics and is the Edward Rose, M.D. and Elizabeth Kirk Rose, M.D. professor of Genetics. She is also the University of Pennsylvania Health System's vice president of Research Informatics and co-director of the Penn Medicine BioBank — a collection of biological samples donated by patient volunteers.
Ritchie is a co-lead of the research pillar in Penn Medicine's recent strategic plan, Serving a Changing World. In 2021, she was elected as a member of the National Academy of Medicine alongside Penn professor Sarah Tishkoff for her work focusing on the genetic basis of human diseases.
“Their contributions to health and medicine are unmatched — they’ve made groundbreaking discoveries, taken bold action against social inequities, and led the response to some of the greatest public health challenges of our time,” National Academy of Medicine President Victor J. Dzau told Penn Today at the time.
Ritchie first earned her bachelor’s degree in biology at the University of Pittsburgh in 1999 and later earned a Ph.D. in human genetics at Vanderbilt University in 2004. Her appointment comes less than two months after Penn became the first Ivy League school to offer an undergraduate degree in artificial intelligence, which features a health care concentration.
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