Prior to her appointment to USA, Dr. Lafky was a program officer for the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC). She was ONC’s subject matter expert, program designer and developer for all aspects of health information technology security and cybersecurity.
“I am excited to be part of the university community and look forward to building on the success of the department,” Dr. Lafky said. “I enjoy being back in the academic environment and look forward to bringing my experiences from both inside and outside the academic environment.”
From 2005 to 2007, Dr. Lafky worked as a research associate at Claremont Graduate University where she was a founding associate at the Kay Center for e-Health. At Claremont, her research centered on health care IT including data security, health information exchange, and personal health records.
Dr. Lafky was the IT director at the University of California, Irvine for the Epidemiology Division of the College of Medicine from 2001 to 2005. There, she managed a major biomedical informatics installation that supported a 250-member research team on multiple NIH funded programs, including the Cancer Family Registries and Cancer Genetics Network.
Previously, Dr. Lafky served as IT and web manager at the American International Education Foundation in Brea, Calif. She developed a multi-lingual international student recruitment online program under the State Department Education USA program.
Dr. Lafky earned her bachelor of science degree at Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pa.; master of science degree in information science at the University of Pittsburgh in Pittsburgh, Pa.; and Ph.D. in management information systems at Claremont Graduate University in Claremont, Calif.
Dr. Lafky was awarded the HHS Secretary’s Achievement Award in 2008 and 2009, HHS Secretary’s Medal: 50 Projects in 2008, and the Claremont Graduate University Student Best Paper Award in 2004. She received an Americas Conference on Information Systems Best Paper Nomination in 2006 and an IEEE Signal Processing Society Best Paper Nomination in 2004.
