Luis Kun
National Defense University, USA
2016

Luis Kun is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of National Security Affairs at the Perry, Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies at the National Defense University, where the prior 8 years he was the Senior Research Professor of Homeland Security at the i-College. He is Editor in Chief of the Journal of Health and Technology, Chairman of the Global Citizen Safety and Security WG for the International Federation of Medical and Biological Engineering (IFMBE). He graduated from the Merchant Marine Academy in Uruguay and holds a BSEE; MSEE and Ph.D. degree in Biomedical Engineering all from UCLA. He spent 14 years at IBM, where he developed the first six clinical applications for the IBM PC; was one of the pioneers on bedside terminals for Intensive Care; and a developer of a semi-expert, real-time, clinical decision support system: PC/PATSS. He was also the technical manager of the Nursing Point of Care System at IBM. Dr. Kun was the biomedical engineer in the team of four that developed the first Teleradiology system and the first Picture Archival and Communications Systems to run on an IBM platform. Later he was Director of Medical Systems Technology and Strategic Planning at Cedars Sinai Medical Center in LA. As the Senior IT Advisor to the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research (AHCPR) he formulated the IT vision and was the lead staff for HPCC program and Telehealth. He prepared AHCPR’s program descriptions in three consecutive: “Supplement to the President’s Fiscal Years 1997-1998 and 1999 Budgets”, and co-authored the Reports to the Congress on Telemedicine (1997) and on HIPAA Security. In July 1997, he was invited speaker to the White House and was largely responsible for the Telemedicine portion of the bill that became part of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 signed by President Clinton on August 5,1997. Dr. Kun represented the DHHS Secretary at a Pan American Forum of Health Care Ministers on Telecommunications and the Health Care Industry in Mexico in 1997. As a Distinguished Fellow at the CDC (1999-2001) he was the Senior Computer Scientist for the Health Alert Network for Bioterrorism and later the Acting Chief Information Technology Officer for the National Immunization Program where he formulated their IT vision on 10/2000. Dr. Kun has made numerous seminal contributions to the information technology, healthcare and public health disciplines and received many awards including: the 2009 AIMBE first-ever Fellow Advocate Award which is presented to “a Fellow who has made outstanding contributions to advancing federal policies assisting the medical and biological engineering field”; the “2002 – IEEE-USA Citation of Honor Award”: “For exemplary contributions in the inception and implementation of a health care information technology vision in the United States and the 1998 Administrator’s Award of Merit presented by the US Surgeon General: “For exceptional dedication and professional achievement that have greatly enhanced the recognition of AHCPR’s research in the High Performance Computing and Communications Program.” He is a Life Fellow of the IEEE and of AIMBE. He is the Founding Chair of the IEEE-USA: Critical Infrastructure Protection Committee; the Bioterrorism & Homeland Security WG and the Electronic Health Record and High Performance Computers and Communications WG. Universidad Favaloro from Argentina named him “Profesor Honoris Causa” on 12/2009. In 2011 he received the Golden Core Member Award by the IEEE Computer Society. He is or was in the Board of Governors or Directors, Advisory board and administrative councils of many organizations, magazines and professional journals including: AIMBE, AAES, ICMCC the IEEE -Society of Social Implications of Technology and-Computer Society Boards of Governors and IFMBE Administrative Council He has lectured on medical and public health, information technology and biomedical engineering in over 85 countries. He is in the IEEE Distinguished Lecturer Program for the Computer Society, EMBS and the SSIT. He has served as an invited: Conference, track, session, tutorial, special symposia chair and/or publications, speaker / keynote speaker and in conference scientific committees, etc. over 500 times. He was named “Distinguished Visitor” by the City of Puebla, Mexico on September 4, 2013 and in August 2014 Honorary Professor of EE at the School of Engineering of the University of Uruguay.