DECEMBER 11, 2026
Mei-Sing Ong, PhD
Faculty, Computational Health Informatics Program (CHIP), Boston Children’s Hospital
Associate Professor of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School
About the Presentation:
About the Presenter: Dr. Ong is a biomedical informatician with a multidisciplinary background in computer science, biomedical engineering, epidemiology, patient safety, pediatric health, and health disparities research. Her research develops and applies computational approaches to inform evidence-based practice in children with chronic diseases. Through epidemiological studies as well as application of state-of-the-art machine learning methods, her scholarly work has contributed to advancing understanding of the causative patterns and health outcomes of pediatric diseases, ranging from more common conditions (e.g., asthma, epilepsy, mental health disorders, post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2, inflammatory bowel disease) to rare diseases (including pediatric pulmonary hypertension, childhood rheumatic diseases, inborn errors of immunity).
Much of her research effort is directed to addressing disparities in health outcomes among underserved populations. Her work further applies computational approaches to study the underlying causes and patterns of medical errors, with a focus on diagnostic errors. She was one of 10 inaugural Scholars of Diagnostic Excellence at the National Academy of Medicine, and has led and contributed to a number of studies aimed at improving the diagnosis of rare diseases. She is one of four founding members of the New England Primary Immunodeficiency Consortium – an initiative aimed at establishing research collaboration in primary immunodeficiency research.
As Chief Clinical Informatics for the consortium, she has helped create a multi-site EHR data resource to catalyze primary immunodeficiency research. Dr. Ong’s research has been funded by the NIH, PCORI, various foundations, and industry.
Dr. Ong received her PhD from the University of New South Wales in Australia. She undertook postdoctoral fellowship training at Boston Children’s Hospital in the Computational Health Informatics Program (CHIP). In 2017, she became a faculty member at the Department of Population Medicine at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute and was appointed Assistant Professor in 2018 and Associate Professor in 2024. In 2025, Dr. Ong rejoined CHIP as a faculty member.