Tara V. Anand, who earned her PhD in Biomedical Informatics at Columbia University this year, received the First Prize award in the Edward H. Shortliffe Doctoral Dissertation Award competition in 2026 with her dissertation titled “Coarse Graphical Representations for Causal Inference with High-Dimensional Clinical Data.”

Ran Xu, PhD, Emory University, received Honorable Mention for her dissertation titled “Trustworthy and Retrieval-Augmented Machine Learning for Digital Health.” Drs. Anand and Xu will present their work to their informatics colleagues onsite during a scientific session at the 2026 AMIA Annual Symposium, November 7-11 in Dallas.

Dr. Anand’s dissertation introduces a new approach to using complex clinical data to better understand causal relationships. Her framework uses “coarse” causal diagrams that group related variables, making causal methods more practical for high-dimensional biomedical data while allowing researchers to be transparent about assumptions and uncertainty.

The AMIA Edward H. Shortliffe Doctoral Dissertation Award offers prestigious recognition for outstanding doctoral research that contributes to the science of informatics in any biomedical application domain, with cash prizes totaling $10,000. The award draws on guidelines published in JAMIA in 2016 to prepare high-quality dissertations in biomedical informatics. The award is named for Edward H. “Ted” Shortliffe, MD, PhD, a pioneer in biomedical informatics and artificial intelligence in medicine who has played a foundational role in informatics research and graduate education.

Drs. Anand and Xu will be recognized at the 2026 AMIA Annual Symposium in Dallas, where they will present their award-winning research during a scientific session.