Ron Aryel

Ron Aryel (born 1961) is a physician who co-edited and co-authored the first peer-reviewed textbook to describe the principles and practices of biosurveillance, which is the automated monitoring and detection of disease in a population utilizing various information sources. (see bioterrorism).
Aryel worked as a contractor to the University of Pittsburgh where he considered and evaluated many "non-traditional" sources of information (information beyond emergency room and other medical information) which might be useful in detecting a bioterrorism attack. This work provided key support for the data exploitation strategies Michael Wagner, Rich Tsui, Jeremy Espino and their colleagues successfully employed in the deployment of the RODS system (Real Time Outbreak Disease Surveillance), a system that had gone "live" in 1999 and was the first automated biosurveillance system in the United States. In 2000, Aryel and Michael Wagner of the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Biomedical Informatics, conceived of the idea of obtaining live data feeds from "non-traditional" (non-health-care) data sources. The RODS laboratory's first efforts eventually led to the establishment of the National Retail Data Monitor, a system which collects data from 20,000 retail locations nation-wide. On February 5, 2002, President George W. Bush visited the RODS laboratory and used it as a model for a 300 million spending proposal to equip all 50 states with biosurveillance systems. In a speech delivered at the nearby Masonic temple, Bush compared the RODS system to a modern "DEW" line (referring to the Cold War ballistic missile early warning system).
Education
Aryel is a graduate of Beverly Hills High School and UCLA, where in 1983 he earned a bachelor's degree in Communication Studies. In 1993, Aryel graduated from Drexel University College of Medicine. He is a former research fellow at the Massachusetts General Hospital's Laboratory of Computer Science;one of his research interests was the application of banking technology to electronic medical records.

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