Meet the
team behind
Google Health
Our team of experts is committed to transforming the future of health through scientific excellence, human-centered technologies, and trusted infrastructure. Our team roll call includes engineers, clinicians, designers, researchers and everything in between, all committed to helping everyone live more life everyday. And at our core is a dedication to diversity, equity, and inclusion—from how we build our products to how we build our workforce.
Dr. David Feinberg has spent his entire career caring for people’s health and wellbeing. Now he’s here to lead Google Health.
After years in the healthcare system, Dr. David Feinberg is bringing together groups of people across Google and Alphabet to take on big healthcare challenges through groundbreaking research and developing tools that support better care. You can learn more about his pre-Google life and his vision for Google Health in this interview.
Health means more than a job to our team
For those of us working at Google Health, the topic of healthcare is personal and something we’re passionate about. Here are just a few of the reasons we do what we do, as seen through the lens of team members’ personal experiences – and what they’ve learned along the way.
Backed by clinical expertise
All Google Health initiatives — from new products to research — are designed and developed in close collaboration with clinicians who are experts in their fields. Our team’s experience and expertise span decades of clinical practice, public health, health economics research, and AI and machine learning in medicine — ensuring that Google Health initiatives adhere to the highest clinical standards.
Dr. Karen DeSalvo
Chief Health Officer
Dr. Karen DeSalvo is a physician executive working at the intersection of medicine, public health, and information technology whose career has focused on improving health and eliminating disparities. She leads a team of health professionals at Google who provide clinical guidance for the development of inclusive research, products and services. Prior to joining Google, Dr. DeSalvo was National Coordinator for Health Information Technology and acted as the Assistant Secretary for Health in the Obama Administration. During her time at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Dr. DeSalvo focused on creating a more consumer-oriented, transparent and value-based health system. Dr. DeSalvo served as the New Orleans Health Commissioner following Hurricane Katrina. Prior to that she was Vice Dean for Community Affairs and Health Policy at the Tulane School of Medicine where she was a practicing internal medicine physician, educator, researcher and leader. She serves on the Council of the National Academy of Medicine.
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Dr. Michael Howell
Chief Clinical Officer and Deputy Chief Health Officer
Dr. Michael Howell’s career focuses on improving the quality, safety, and experience of care, including how technology can help improve health. A nationally recognized expert on healthcare delivery science, he has served on advisory panels for the Centers for Disease Control, Medicare, and the National Academy of Medicine. His writings, cited by other researchers more than 10,000 times, have had an impact on the field and are incorporated in several national guidelines. A pulmonary and critical care physician, he also spent many years caring for patients at Harvard and at the University of Chicago, where he served as Chief Quality Officer.
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Ashley Sumner
Lead Nurse
Ashley Sumner is a Burns and Plastic Surgery Nurse Specialist who has held several senior nurse roles in the NHS and the UK Private Healthcare sector. Throughout her career, Ms. Sumner has led the delivery of large-scale quality improvement and clinical IT deployment projects across hospitals and healthcare groups. In 2014, she joined a UK health technology organisation as Nurse Director for mobile clinical solutions and completed an MSc in Quality and Patient Safety at Imperial College, London, in 2015. Since joining Alphabet in 2017, Ashley has worked across functions supporting product development, deployment and partner engagement, leading on quality, regulatory affairs and clinical safety.
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Dr. John Hernandez
Head of Health Economics, Outcomes Research and Clinical Research Operations
Dr. John Hernandez brings 30 years of clinical research, consulting, and commercial strategy experience to Google Health. Prior to joining Alphabet, he was Vice President of Global Health Economics and Outcomes Research at Abbott Laboratories, and Vice President of Clinical Research and Health Economics at Boston Scientific Corporation. At Google Health, Dr. Hernandez focuses on how to leverage data from connected biosensors, smartphones, electronic health records, and clinical studies to create a more patient-centric healthcare system.
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Careers at Google Health
The Google Health team combines technological expertise with clinical best practices and patient-first principles — offering a great opportunity for anyone interested in and passionate about healthcare. Want to join our team?
