Dr. Xu has more than 25 years’ successful experiences and achievements in innovation and administration of developing interoperable information systems and analyzing integrated health data for public health policy and practice. Before her retirement in 2018, she directed the Center for Health Data and Informatics in Utah Department of Health (UDOH), oversaw the statewide enterprise data management and data sharing and served on the UDOH Executive Leadership Team. Dr. Xu also served as the State HIT Coordinator working with ONC, a member of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials’ Informatics Policy Committee, and the UDOH member on the Board of Directors for the Utah Health Information Network, the Utah’s Health Information Exchange (HIE). Innovation and collaboration are two passionate driving forces in Wu’s career. Having collaborated with colleagues in UDOH, Utah and other states since 1997, Dr. Xu has served as P.I., Co-P.I. or grant manager for 21 competitive federal grants. She also provided advice/consultation at the National Quality Forum’s patient safety panel, the Public Health Informatics Institute’s special conferences, CDC informatics fellowship program, and ASTHO state informatics directors network. Under her leadership, UDOH has been recognized as one of the three informatics savvying state health departments in the nation. As an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the University of Utah’s Departments of Biomedical Informatics, Internal Medicine/Clinical Epidemiology, and Sociology, Dr. Xu, with her academic colleagues, also published applied researches in peer-reviewed journals. Dr. Xu received the 2018 Utah Governor’s Awards for Excellence: 1) Individual Award for Outstanding Public Service and 2) Team Award for Outstanding Technology Innovation.
Wu joined the Utah Citizens Counsel in 2019. She will work with the health subcommittee and focus on health equality and health policies to improve health systems and health status of Utahns. Wu is a member of the National Committee of Vital and Health Statistics (2020-2024).
Wu grew up in Beijing, China. During the Cultural Revolution, Wu was sent down to countryside and worked in the field. Under the reform policy, Wu received her B.A. in History from Sichuan University, China, 1980; M.A. in Political Sciences, Tianjin Normal University, China in 1983. Wu came to the U.S. for education and received her Ph.D. degree in Sociology with specialty in health demography from Utah State University in 1996,
I was raised in South Cottonwood on a large plot of land that was first homesteaded by my Great-Grandfather, who came to Utah in 1855. My Dad always had a large garden which required a lot of weeding and watering, not to mention an acre or so of non-native Kentucky Blue Grass to be mowed each week. I spent the rest of my youth wading and swimming in Little Cottonwood Creek. Later, I moved with Sandy, my wife, to Sandy, where we raised our five children and where we now live.
After receiving degrees from the University of Utah and Brigham Young University, I spent my career working for the Utah Legislature on the staff of the Office of Legislative Research and General Counsel, first as a Policy Analyst and later as Deputy Director where I directed the finances and operations of the office. Staffing assignments included various committees dealing with environmental, education, health, human services, and taxation issues. I retired from the office in 2017.
During my career with the Legislature I was also active in the National Conference of State Legislatures where I served as chair of the Research and Committee Staff Section and on other committees.
The Utah Citizens’ Counsel (UCC) is an independent, non-partisan group of senior community advocates dedicated to improving public policy on complex issues through dialogue, creative problem solving, education, and consensus building.
