Rupa Valdez, a professor of systems and information engineering at the University of Virginia School of Engineering and Applied Science and a professor of public health sciences at the UVA School of Medicine, has been elected a fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics .
Valdez is one of 22 biomedical and health informatics leaders selected for the American College of Medical Informatics’ Class of 2026. The new fellows will be recognized Nov. 8 at the ACMI Celebration and Induction Dinner during the AMIA 2026 Annual Symposium in Dallas , hosted by the American Medical Informatics Association. ACMI is an honorary college of fellows within AMIA.
Election to ACMI is among the highest honors in biomedical and health informatics — an area of study incorporating data science, computer science, information science and social science to make healthcare safer, more efficient and more effective for patients. ACMI fellows are recognized for sustained excellence, leadership and significant contributions to the field and to the advancement of health and healthcare.
Valdez’s research also illustrates the breadth of UVA Engineering’s approach to solving complex problems: Rather than treating healthcare as solely a medical challenge, her work examines the larger systems in which people live, work and make decisions about their health.
For Valdez, the ACMI recognition reflects a career spent bringing together disciplines that are increasingly important to the future of healthcare, including engineering, informatics, public health and the social sciences, to better understand how people manage their health outside traditional clinical settings.
“I am deeply honored to be included among my distinguished colleagues in my election as a fellow,” Valdez said of the honor. “I look forward to collaborating with other members of ACMI and ACMI partners to advocate for informatics solutions that meet and support the everyday contexts in which patients and care partners are embedded.”
Her research focuses on designing systems and technologies that support the ways people manage health at home and in their communities. She draws on human factors engineering, cultural anthropology and health informatics, as well as participatory and co-design approaches, to understand how social networks, physical environments, community resources and information technology shape patients’ experiences.
That work is particularly important as healthcare increasingly extends beyond hospitals and clinics and into people’s homes, communities and digital lives, creating a network of interdependent technological, structural and cultural systems, said Alfredo Garcia, chair of UVA Engineering’s Department of Systems and Information Engineering.
“Rupa’s work exemplifies systems thinking, a holistic, interdisciplinary engineering approach to improving people’s health and quality of life,” Garcia said. “Her ACMI election recognizes the value of such an approach in service to the greater good.”
Valdez’s work has earned recognition well beyond UVA. In 2025, she was elected a fellow of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society , one of only four members selected for the distinction that year. Her nominators highlighted her pioneering initiation of patient ergonomics, a field focused on applying human factors principles to the experiences of patients and their caregivers.
Her recent research includes a five-year, $2.9 million National Institutes of Health study examining the relationship between structural ableism and health disparities . Locally, she was recently awarded a grant in collaboration with researchers at George Mason University and Old Dominion University for a 4-VA-supported project examining the needs of autistic adults who use apps designed to support executive functioning .
“Understanding the full range of barriers faced by the disability community to health and well-being, and creating ways to measure these barriers, is an essential first step to creating responsive interventions,” Valdez said in 2025.
Her work has been supported by the NIH, the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, among other organizations. She has testified before Congress on health equity for the disability community and serves in multiple leadership roles, including as associate editor for Ergonomics and in an advisory role for the National Committee for Quality Assurance. Valdez also is the founder and president of the Blue Trunk Foundation , a nonprofit focused on making travel more accessible for people with disabilities and chronic health conditions.
Her ACMI fellowship adds another significant distinction to a growing list of honors recognizing her contributions to human-centered health technology and engineering.
At UVA Engineering, Valdez’s work demonstrates how systems engineering can help address some of society’s most complex challenges, not simply by developing new technologies, but by understanding how those technologies interact with people, communities and the systems around them.
Her election to ACMI recognizes that approach and places UVA Engineering among the institutions contributing to the future of biomedical and health informatics.