The Comet Corner Series, created by the UT Dallas Office of Research and in partnership with the schools across our campus, hosts chats with some of our notable alumni to hear how they have taken their research out into the world and made #UTDResearchImpact.

Real world data is playing an increasingly important role in drug development. Learn how clinical trials will evolve in the era of big data from key regulatory leaders and real world data experts.

Dr. Richard K. Scotch, Professor of Sociology, Public Policy, and Political Economy; currently serves as Program Head of the Sociology and Public Health Program and the Criminology and Criminal Justice Program in the UT Dallas School of Economic, Political, and Policy Sciences. His teaching includes courses on medical sociology, social stratification, and social and health policy, while his research focuses on social policy and social movements related to disability, health, and education.

Dr. Theodore (Ted) Price, BS ’97, Eugene McDermott Professor and Chair of the Department of Neuroscience in the School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences at UT Dallas; Director of the Center for Advanced Pain Studies; Co-Founder of CerSci Therapeutics, Ted’s Brain Science Products and 4E Therapeutics. With his proven development and commercialization capabilities, Dr. Ted Price will walk us through how analyzing big data played a role in product development and led to the recent $52.5 million deal of start-up firm CerSci Therapeutics.

Christopher Boone, PhD ’13, FACHE, FHIMSS, has a career-long history as a dynamic, innovative thought leader and a public voice on the power of real-world evidence, health informatics, and big data analytics and its ability to radically transform the global health care system into a learning health system.

Chris currently serves as the Vice President, Global Head of Health Economics and Outcomes Research at Abbvie. He is also an adjunct assistant professor of health administration at the New York University’s Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, an active board member of several influential organizations, and a co-founder of a few start-up companies. Most recently, he served as the vice president and head of global medical epidemiology and big data analysis at Pfizer.

Chris has been recognized as a 2019 Top 100 Innovator in Data & Analytics, a 2018 Emerging Pharma Leader by Pharmaceutical Executive, and a 2017 Top 40 Under 40 Leader in Minority Health by the National Minority Quality Forum (NMQF).

Boone holds, or has held, appointments to some of the most influential national committees focused on health data and patient centricity, including the Board of Directors for the Stewards of Change Institute, the Executive Board of Directors for the Patient Advocate Foundation, the Executive Board of Directors for the National Patient Advocate Foundation, the Board of Directors for SHARE for Cures, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Data Across Sectors for Health (DASH) Initiative, the Interoperability Committee for the National Quality Forum, the National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics (NCVHS) Working Group on HHS Data Access and Use, the Health IT Policy Committee (federal advisory committee), and the advisory group for the American Society of Clinical Oncologists’ (ASCO) CancerLinQ initiative.

Chris earned a B.S. from the University of Tulsa, a M.H.A. from the University of Texas at Arlington, a Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Dallas (in Public Affairs from the EPPS’s Public and Nonprofit Management program), and two executive certificates from the Harvard Kennedy School. He is a Fellow of the American College of Health Executives and a Fellow of the Healthcare Information Management & Systems Society.