Dr. Hude Quan, PhD, has pursued excellence his whole life. His dedication and talents have earned him a place amongst global leaders in health informatics for health promotion and disease prevention over the past two decades.
The professor in the Department of Community Health Sciences at the Cumming School of Medicine (CSM), University of Calgary, has published more than 300 peer-reviewed papers and was named a Thomson-Reuters highly cited researcher in 2014, 2015 and 2016. The director of the University of Calgary World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Centre in Classification, Terminology and Standards and director of the new Centre for Health Informatics (CHI) at the CSM, Quan's research focuses on developing and improving the quality of big data for use in precision medicine, disease surveillance and improving health-care systems.
Quan's creative ideas and successes have netted him millions in research dollars and numerous accolades, most recently a prestigious University of Calgary Killam Annual Professorship for excellence in teaching, research and services. He is quick to credit those he works with, saying, "I am so thankful for the people around me. Without them, none of this is possible."
Obstacles overcome at an early age
Quan's humility and deep faith were cultivated during his formative years. Quan was born in a small town in China in 1962, when hunger and persecution were common. As a youngster he excelled in school, especially math, but his family didn't hold high hopes for his education, as only families of the communist party members were able to attend university at the time.
