Michael J. Ackerman received his Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, in Biomedical Engineering. He is currently Assistant Director for High Performance Computing and Communications at the National Library of Medicine, responsible for programs in medical imaging, telemedicine and next generation networking. He holds academic appointments as an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Medicine at George Washington University and as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Medical Informatics at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences.
Dr. Ackerman is active in the field of medical informatics. He was elected a Fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics (ACMI) in 1985 and a Fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) in 1992. He serves as a member of the Board of Directors of the American Telemedicine Association. He is a member of the editorial boards of the Telemedicine Journal and e-Health, Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, and IEEE Transactions on Information Technology in Biomedicine. He has published over 140 papers and book chapters. Dr. Ackerman's work in conceiving and developing the Visible Human Project has been recognized through numerous awards including the 1998 Johns Hopkins University Ranice W. Crosby Distinguished Achievement Award, the 1996 National Institutes of Health Director's Award, and the 1996 Satava Award for Medical Applications of Virtual Reality.