Tej D. Azad is a surgeon, data scientist, and entrepreneur. He is committed to integrating human care and machine intelligence to improve health, particularly for underserved populations, such as the elderly and patients with traumatic injuries. Raised in southern Indiana, Tej graduated summa cum laude from Washington University in St. Louis where he co-founded St. Louis MetroMarket, a one-aisle mobile grocery store for food insecure communities. He obtained MD and MS degrees from Stanford University, completing advanced training in biomedical data science. While at Stanford, Tej developed blood tests for cancer detection, characterized novel care pathways for low back pain, and devised a framework for integrating digital biomarkers into clinical practice as a Rock Health research fellow. Tej has published more than 140 peer-reviewed manuscripts and is Principal Investigator on a prospective study of novel biomarkers for neurotraumatic injury, supported by multiple competitive grants. His training and work has been supported by the NIH, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the North American Spine Society, and others. He has worked as a CMS fellow under the CMS Deputy Chief Medical officer to characterize the impact of surgery on older Americans in nursing homes and as a AAAS Science and Technology Policy fellow at ARPA-H where he designed generative AI tools to accelerate scientific innovation. Tej’s work has been recognized with multiple honors, including the Emerging Generation award from the ASCI, the Walter Dandy Award for Clinical Research, and the Julius Goodman Award from the Congress of Neurological Surgeons.