William Brown

William Brown is an Associate Adjunct Professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), School of Medicine. He is affiliated with multiple research centers, including the Center for AIDS Prevention Studies, the Division of Prevention Science, and the Bakar Computational Health Science Institute. His work bridges biomedical informatics and HIV clinical and behavioral research, with a strong emphasis on health equity and community engagement.

His research interests include:

• Biomedical Informatics and Clinical Research Informatics
• mHealth and New Media for HIV prevention and treatment
• Semantic Harmonization and Data Integration
• Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR)
• Social Determinants of Health and Health Disparities
• Natural Language Processing in EHRs

His recent publications (2020–2025) reflect a consistent focus on leveraging digital health tools—particularly SMS, telehealth, and secure messaging—to improve chronic disease management, HIV prevention, and health equity in underserved populations. He frequently employs mixed-methods approaches and is deeply involved in the design and evaluation of patient-centered technologies.

His scientific awards include:

• AMIA Annual Symposium Paper Competition (2nd Place, 2016)
• NIMH Loan Repayment Program Award (2012, renewed 2015)
• Academic Grant Award, Russell M. Grossman Endowment (2010)
• Kaiser Foundation Academic Grant Award (2009)

Brown has been a Principal Investigator on NIH-funded studies related to opioid use disorder risk assessment using NLP, HIV self-testing, and secure messaging in diabetes care. He has also served as Co-Investigator on major grants focused on chronic disease disparities and learning health systems. His research often involves collaboration with community organizations and vulnerable populations, including African American, Latino, and LGBT communities.

He leads the CODE Lab (Clinical and Observational Data Excellence) and has contributed significantly to the development of tools for data visualization, semantic harmonization, and patient engagement in research.