AI Leadership Team
Bringing a unified, enterprise-wide perspective to AI strategy and governance at UAB.
Meet Our AI Leadership Team
The AI Leadership Team is anchored in the Office of the President. It is convened and led by the Executive Director for Strategic Initiatives and includes senior leaders from across the enterprise, reporting to the President.
Tom Brannan
Senior Vice President, Advancement and Strategic Initiatives
Office of the Vice President for UAB Advancement
Robert Howard
Vice President for Information Technology and Chief Information Officer
Office of the Vice President for Information Technology
Ryan Allen
Associate Vice President and Chief Information Security Officer
HSIS Management, UAB Health System
Eric Wallace, M.D.
Chief Medical Information and Digital Health Officer
Department of Medicine, Nephrology
Katie Crenshaw
Vice President for Administration
Office of the Vice President for Administration
Stephanie Mullins
Vice President for Finance
Office of the Vice President for Finance
Rosie O'Beirne
Assistant Vice President and Chief Digital Strategy and Marketing Officer
Office of Marketing and Communications
Cameron Earnhardt
Counsel
Office of Counsel
Chris Brown, Ph.D.
Vice President for Research
Office of the Vice President for Research
Janet Woodruff-Borden, Ph.D.
Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost
Office of the Provost
Team Facilitator
Chandni Khadka
Executive Director of Strategic Initiatives and AI Integration
Office of the President
Purpose
The AI Leadership Team (AILT) brings a unified, enterprise-wide perspective to AI strategy and governance at UAB. Its role is to help units move faster, reduce duplication, and ensure that local efforts are supported by clear standards, coordinated guidance, and shared institutional direction.
The AILT helps ensure that AI adoption at UAB is:
Safe, Ethical, and Transparent
Ensuring responsible development and deployment of AI technologies across the enterprise.
Privacy-Preserving and Accessible
Protecting individual privacy while ensuring AI tools remain accessible to the UAB community.
Fiscally Responsible
Making prudent investments that deliver meaningful institutional value.
Mission-Aligned
Aligned with UAB's mission, values, and guiding principles.
At the same time, the team is intentionally designed to enable innovation, providing clarity and confidence so units can pursue AI-enabled goals with appropriate enterprise support.
Scope and Decision Thresholds
UAB uses a distributed governance model for artificial intelligence. Most AI initiatives remain within their appropriate pillar and follow existing policies, guidelines, and governance processes.
The AI Leadership Team is engaged when an AI proposal meets one or more of the following thresholds:
Multi-Pillar Impact
Impacts or benefits more than one strategic pillar.
System of Record
Connects to or modifies a university-wide system of record.
Significant Institutional Risk
Presents significant institutional risk that cannot be resolved by existing governance bodies, such as IT Governance, Compliance, HIPAA, Clinical AI Review, Data Governance, IRB, or Academic Integrity.
Cross-Pillar Input
Would benefit from coordinated enterprise review and cross-pillar perspectives.
UAB IT and HSIS retain responsibility for initial vetting of AI tools. Proposals that meet AILT thresholds, or would benefit from cross-pillar input, are escalated for coordinated enterprise review. All AI activity is tracked in the AI Integration Hub to promote transparency, alignment, and institutional learning.
Role and Responsibilities
Members of the AILT provide institutional leadership in the following areas, including but not limited to:
Enterprise Direction
Set enterprise AI mission, principles, and priorities; steer the enterprise AI roadmap at the strategic level.
Review and Approval
Review and approve AI projects, platforms, or tools that span multiple strategic pillars or modify/replace a university-wide system of record, and adjudicate high-risk issues that fall outside existing governance bodies or require Board of Trustees review.
Process Modernization
Ensure enterprise AI decision-making considers not only AI tools and platforms, but also opportunities to reexamine, simplify, and modernize underlying institutional processes so that AI-enabled capabilities deliver meaningful institutional value.
Standards and Ethics
Establish enterprise standards and guidance for responsible AI; monitor enterprise risk posture and ethics; serve as final escalation when thresholds are exceeded.
Cross-Pillar Resolution
Resolve cross-pillar issues when different units have competing needs or priorities, ensuring decisions support the best interest of the entire enterprise both operationally and financially.
Monitoring and Reporting
Review dashboards, quarterly updates, and the Annual AI Activities Report to adjust priorities, standards, and strategic direction.