Former FDA Administrator Robert Califf, M.D., vice chancellor for data sciences for Duke Health and director of Duke Forge, has taken a full-time role with the Alphabet Company, serving as head of medical strategy and policy and working across the Google Health and Verily enterprises.
At Duke Forge, Califf led a team of scholars, clinicians, and experts from multiple disciplines who represent Duke’s campus-wide interest in health data science. The organization described its primary mission this way: “to free the data to enable actionable insights and measurements that will guide implementation efforts across health systems.” Most recently, he has been instrumental in development of the Duke AI for Health initiative.
At the same time he returned to Duke from the FDA in 2017 to help create the Duke Forge, Califf joined the senior management team at Verily Life Sciences, an Alphabet company, and split his time evenly between his responsibilities at Duke and at Verily. Now he is transitioning to a full-time role at Alphabet. The Donald F. Fortin, M.D. Professor of Cardiology in the School of Medicine, Califf was the founding director of the Duke Clinical Research Institute (DCRI). He served as Vice Chancellor for Clinical and Translational Research at Duke and as Director of the Duke Translational Medicine Institute.
Califf will remain on faculty at Duke University as an adjunct professor in the School of Medicine. The university said that it would begin planning to ensure the continued progress and success of Duke Forge and the AI for Health initiative.
