Nicoleta Economou-Zavlanos, PhD, is the Director of the Duke Health AI Evaluation & Governance Program and the founding director of the Algorithm-Based Clinical Decision Support (ABCDS) Oversight initiative. In this capacity, she leads Duke Health’s efforts to evaluate and govern health AI technologies. Dr. Economou also serves on the Executive Committee of the NIH Common Fund’s Bridge to Artificial Intelligence (Bridge2AI) Program. Additionally, she served as Scientific Advisor for the Coalition for Health AI (CHAI), driving the development of guidelines for AI assurance in healthcare, from 2024 to 2025.
A nationally recognized expert in health AI governance, Dr. Economou has been instrumental in creating frameworks and methodologies for the registration, review, and assurance of health AI systems. Her research, published in leading journals such as NPJ Digital Medicine, JAMA, JAMA Health Forum, and JAMIA, reflects her commitment to advancing the responsible development and use of AI in healthcare.
Dr. Economou has led projects supporting a learning health system at Duke, working alongside faculty and health system leadership to bring together people, processes, technologies, and data streams required to drive evidence-based continuous improvement and innovation in health care delivery and operations.
Prior to joining Duke, Dr. Economou worked in the life science and pharmaceutical industry where she developed, validated, and deployed risk models and designed and defined metrics for monitoring clinical trials using analytics software. She completed her postdoctoral training at the University of North Carolina Eshelman School of Pharmacy and received her PhD in Biochemistry from Drexel University College of Medicine.