George Demiris, PhD, FACMI, is a PIK (Penn Integrates Knowledge) University Professor at the University of Pennsylvania with joint appointments in Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Informatics in the Perelman School of Medicine, and Biobehavioral Health Sciences in the School of Nursing. He was born and raised in Athens, Greece, and completed his undergraduate studies in Medical Informatics at the University of Heidelberg in Germany. He completed his doctorate in Health Informatics in 2000 at the University of Minnesota. His research focuses on the design, implementation, and evaluation of informatics systems to engage and empower older adults and their families, and on tools to facilitate a redesign of home health and hospice care. Before joining the University of Pennsylvania, he was a faculty member at the University of Washington, where he directed the Clinical Informatics and Patient Centered Technologies Program, and the Aging and Informatics Training Program. He has conducted clinical trials to examine the effectiveness of supportive interventions in reducing anxiety and improving quality of life for family caregivers in the home setting. He has also examined using “smart home” technologies to promote aging in place as well as technology-enabled behavioral interventions for family caregivers. He is a Fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics and the Gerontological Society of America. He is one of the founders of the Hospice Caregiving Research Network.
