Michelle Birkett is a tenured associate professor in the Departments of Medical Social Sciences and Preventive Medicine. She directs the Center for Computational and Social Sciences in Health (COMPASS) within the Institute for Artificial Intelligence in Medicine (I.AIM), which aims to foster connection between data science, social science and population health across Northwestern. For nearly 10 years she directed the CONNECT Complex Systems and Health Disparities Research Program within the IMPACT Institute. Dr. Birkett’s research uses network and quantitative methodologies to understand the social contextual influence of stigma on the health and wellbeing of marginalized populations, and in particular, sexual and gender minority youth. This work is influenced by a multilevel perspective of health that considers direct and indirect influences of multiple levels of the social and physical environment. This multilevel approach to understanding health underlies her interest in network data and her commitment to conducting research that leads to social change at multiple levels of society to eliminate health disparities.

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Dr. Birkett has led multiple NIH-funded projects and has a wealth of expertise in the collection and analysis of network data. She is an NIH Career Awardee for her work understanding network, multilevel, and contextual influences on racial disparities in HIV within young men who have sex with men. She also directs Network Canvas, a software development project which seeks to simplify the collection and streamline the management of social data, thereby allowing health researchers to assess more nuanced associations between social contextual factors and disease. An author of more than 85 articles, Birkett's work has appeared in academic journals like The American Journal of Public Health, The Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, The Journal of Adolescent Health, Social Networks, as well as popular outlets such as The Atlantic, Reuters, and Wired. In 2018 she was selected as an inaugural member of the New Voices Program of The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, a initiative to promote new and diverse scientific voices within the National Academies.