25th Annual Rural Health Conference
April 9, 2026
| Time | Activity |
|---|---|
| 7:30am – 8:00am | Exhibitor and Poster Set-Up | RAST Hallway |
| 7:30am – 8:00 | Registration and Breakfast | RAST |
| 8:00am – 8:30am | Welcome | SELLERS |
| 8:30am – 9:00am | Why AI Operating Systems Now | SELLERS Jiaqi Gong, PhD Founding Director, Alabama Center for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence Associate Professor of Computer Science Adjunct Professor of Mechanical Engineering Adjunct Professor of Community Health Sciences The University of Alabama *Virtual option not available |
| 9:00am – 10:00am | What Matters for Roadmaps/Institute-scale Efforts: Funding Logic | SELLERS Jemin George National Science Foundation Program Director Innovation & Technology Ecosystems Division *Virtual option not available |
| 10:00am – 10:15am | Break and Visit Exhibitors | RAST Hallway |
| 10:00am – 11:15am | Bahar Endowed Lecture in Internal Medicine | RAST Towards Excellence in Primary Care and Rural Health Tapan Mehta, PhD Professor and Vice Chair for Research Department of Family & Community Medicine The University of Alabama at Birmingham |
| 11:15am – 12:15pm | AI in Rural Healthcare | RAST Eric Wallace, MD Chief Medical Information and Digital Officer |
| 12:15pm – 1:15pm | Lunch and Visit Exhibitors |
| 1:15pm – 2:15pm | Business and Clinical Intelligence: Leveraging AI to Augment and Scale Rural Healthcare | RAST David Box Senior VP, Managing Partner, Strategic Accounts EMIDS |
| 2:15pm – 3:15pm | AI Across Academic Medicine: Integrating Artificial Intelligence into Education, Research, and Clinical Practice Jonathon | RAST Tyler Baccus, MD Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine College of Community Health Sciences The University of Alabama Panel Discussion with: Tamer Elsayed, MD, FIRM Chair, CCHS Robin Young, DNP, Chief Nursing Officer, CCHS Ansley Baccus, MD, Clinical Assistant Professor, CCHS Benjamin Shankles, Systems Analyst I, Health IT |
| 3:45pm | Exhibitor table break down | RAST Hallway |
| 4:30pm – 6:00pm | Poster Presentations and Reception | RAST |
AI & Rural Resilience: Empowering Rural Healthcare
Jemin George, PhD
NSF Program Director
Yanli Wang, PhD
NIH/NLM Program Director
Lectures
Courtesy of Alabama AI Innovation Summit, “AI Operating Systems & Knowledge Infrastructure”
- April 9th: Jemin george, PhD, NSF Program Director
- April 10th: Yanli Wang, PhD, NIH/NLM Program Director
The University of Alabama College of Community Health Sciences is accredited by the Medical Association of the State of Alabama to provide continuing medical education for physicians.
The University of Alabama College of Community Health Sciences designates this live activity for a maximum of 3 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.