The Office of the Vice President for Research is excited to announce the upcoming Utah’s Unique Data Powerhouses Lightning Talk event, a fast-paced and engaging forum designed to showcase Utah’s Unique Data Resources and spark interdisciplinary collaboration across the university. This event is more than a showcase of health data, it’s a celebration of the diverse ways data can inform, inspire, and innovate across fields. Whether you’re a data scientist, a health services researcher, public health expert, artist, designer, historian, or engineer, this is your opportunity to explore how data intersects with your work and to connect with others doing the same.

Spotlight on Utah’s Unique Data Powerhouses Utah is home to some of the most powerful and distinctive data resources in the nation—resources that make Utah research truly special. This event will highlight:

• Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW): The EDW contains current and historical data from EHRs, ancillary, billing, costing, and other systems, patient‐reported outcomes, population management, etc., and a large corpus (over 75 million) of clinical documents for natural language processing (NLP).
• VA Data Sets: Rich electronic health record datasets from the national Veterans Affairs system, enabling studies on Veteran health and outcomes.
• Utah Population Database (UPDB): A globally unique resource linking genealogical, medical, and demographic data.
• Wasatch Front Research Data Center (WFRDC): An essential resource for health research that provides access to secure microdata held by the National Center for Health Statistics, and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, plus thousands of other health datasets held by other federal agencies.
• MarketScan: The MarketScan Data Warehouse contains individual-level healthcare and dental claims, lab test results, health-risk assessments, short-term disability, and workers’ compensation.

These resources are not only powerful, but they are also uniquely positioned to support groundbreaking research that can’t be easily done anywhere else.

We invite researchers, faculty, students, and community partners to submit lightning talks that:

• Showcase innovative uses of Utah’s data powerhouses.
• Highlight other unique Utah-based data resources.
• Explore creative, artistic, or interdisciplinary approaches to health data.
• Propose collaborative projects or ideas that leverage these assets.

Guidance on Lightning Talk Presentations:

• Lightning talks will be limited to a maximum of 5-slides and 3-5 minutes per person.
• Space for lightning talks is limited. Please indicate on your registration form whether you are interested in submitting a lightning talk.
• You may also upload your slides as part of the registration or submit them to Natalie McElroy.

Event Details

• Date: September 8, 2025
• Time: 1:00 – 2:30 pm
• Location: Please register to receive the location information
• Submit your registration here

University faculty, staff, students, community-partners, public health professionals, and other stakeholders are also invited to attend and participate in the conversation and future collaboration. The event will be co-sponsored by the Integrating Medicine and Policy to Achieve Healthcare Transformation (IMPACT) Program, a new Spencer Fox Eccles School of Medicine’s program for late-translational (T3/T4), health-services, and outcomes research.

Questions can be directed to Natalie McElroy.