Iain Buchan

Iain Buchan is a public health, informatics and data science research leader.

He leads the University of Liverpool's Institute of Population Health and pursues data-intensive public health research for major societal challenges, most recently the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic and COVID-19 responses.

Born in and raised in Liverpool, Iain studied medicine in his home city in the 1980s, pursuing studies in pharmacology and writing statistical software at the same time. As a junior doctor in the 1990s he became more involved in analysing patient care pathways, social determinants of health and the dynamics of population-based health and care systems. He then moved to Cambridge to train as a Public Health Consultant while continuing to research medical informatics.

In 2003, he took his first academic job at the University of Manchester, where over the next 14 years he built one of the UK's most successful health informatics research groups, attracting over £100m in research grants and founding national facilities including a MRC centre (Health eResearch Centre) and the forerunner of what is now HDRUK. In 2018, after a year out in industry, working on a 10-year view of how AI might transform healthcare - with social not just shareholder value - Iain returned to his roots seeking ways for civic data and AI to better serve public health and society in general.

Iain is a Fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics, Faculty of Public Health, Royal Statistical Society, British Computer Society and Faculty of Clinical Informatics, and is NIHR Senior Investigator.