Gillian Franklin, MD, PhD, MPH, MS, joined the Department of Biomedical Informatics (BMI), Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, University at Buffalo, SUNY (UB), as an assistant professor of health sciences in July 2022. Dr. Franklin is a current recipient of the UB Clinical and Translational Science Diversity Supplement, which is linked to the KL2 Mentored Career Development Award through the NIH's National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences.

Dr. Franklin completed her Clinical Informatics fellowship, Master of Science in Biomedical Informatics, and an advanced certificate in College Teaching at UB.

As a trained anatomic pathologist, dermatopathologist, informatician, and public health professional, Dr. Franklin's work focuses on population and public health, public health informatics, and social epidemiology. She addresses the socio-structural factors, including the environmental and social determinants of health, that influence health equity and health outcomes. Her work includes evidence-based initiatives to address health disparities and strengthen the community's capacity for prevention.

Dr. Franklin's current research as a public health informatician (social epidemiologist) in Community Health Informatics, focuses on addressing health and health care disparities in populations that have been disproportionately affected by inequities, where she applies clinical/health-related data and health informatics, through the use of electronic health records, data science, data analytics, and the results from semi-structured health surveys, to address these populations to better manage their lagging compliance with various public health interventions including vaccines. Her work includes partnering with the community, including with community leaders, to tease out and attempt to better understand some of the systemic barriers and other reasons behind vaccine hesitancy and to promote the use of fact-based health information to improve health literacy. Through this research, Dr. Franklin's hope is to inspire those who encounter health and health care disparities to become more open to following through with health/public health interventions.

Dr. Franklin's previous work includes the following: At the University of North Texas Health Science Center, School of Public Health (UNTHSC-SPH); A sun awareness pilot project in babies and children, the Healthy Moms, Healthy Babies, Healthy Community infant mortality collaboration, the use of focus groups to explore neighborhood attitudes toward air quality, and a qualitative and quantitative assessment of isocyanates in medical devices and products as potential sources of skin exposure in neonates. After obtaining her MPH, Dr. Franklin worked at Columbia University Medical Center, Department of Dermatology, where her research focused on immunohistochemical analyses using bone morphogenetic proteins (BMPs) in mice and human skin. Following her Ph.D. training, Dr. Franklin was a postdoctoral research fellow at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, where she was involved in studying how occupational exposures to arsenic resulted in skin lesions in a Bangladeshi cohort. Additionally, Dr. Franklin was involved with the Region 10 Health Partnership (RHP) for the Texas 1115 Medicaid Waiver as the Learning Collaborative Coordinator at the John Peter Smith Health Network, Fort Worth, Texas.

Dr. Franklin has worked with and mentored undergraduate, graduate, and medical students, research scientists, laboratory, and clinical residents. Her additional interests include undergraduate, graduate, and medical education as it relates to the social dimensions of asynchronous learning and various learning styles.

Dr. Franklin challenges the next generation of students to invest in ongoing work that promotes primary prevention and health equity and addresses the environmental and social determinants of health in diverse populations.