Dr Joseph Alderman is a postgraduate doctor specialising in anaesthesia & intensive care medicine at University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, and a clinical researcher in AI and digital health at the University of Birmingham.

He is interested in how machine learning and artificial intelligence can be safely applied to health and social care, enhancing treatment quality and patient experience whilst ensuring robust quality assessment to protect people from harm.

His doctoral research focuses on how data driven technologies – including artificial intelligence algorithms – can introduce biases and inequity into healthcare, and how this can be mitigated. He is co-lead for the STANDING Together project with Dr Jo Palmer, Dr Elinor Laws, Ms Jaspret Gill, Prof Alastair Denniston and Chief Investigator Dr Xiaoxuan Liu. Through collaboration with an international team of stakeholders and consultation with members of the public, STANDING Together aims to set standards to encourage health data to better reflect society, meaning that AI algorithms are more likely to work well for everyone.

Dr Alderman’s main research interest is in the intersection between artificial intelligence / machine learning and healthcare, particularly focussing on how best to maintain quality and safety when these technologies are used in time-critical clinical situations.

He is also interested in the consequences of elevated circulating lactate in critically ill patients, and is collaborating with other researchers to investigate this area

Dr Alderman studied medicine at the University of Birmingham between 2009 and 2015. In 2014 he graduated with an intercalated BMedSc degree, and graduated again in 2015 in medicine & surgery.

His intercalated BMedSc degree involved an extended period of laboratory research studying the pathophysiology of measles, and other similar viruses. He used this experience as a springboard to secure a place on the West Midlands academic foundation programme, undertaking several speciality rotations at University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust.

In 2017 Dr Alderman started postgraduate speciality training in anaesthesia (ACCS CT1) at University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, and in the same year was appointed as an NIHR academic clinical fellow in intensive care medicine at the University of Birmingham. During this fellowship Dr Alderman secured funding from the National Institute of Academic Anaesthesia to run a laboratory study aiming to better understand why people who are critically ill develop high blood ‘lactate’ levels, and what impact this may have on their immune and metabolic systems.

He was appointed as a speciality registrar in intensive care medicine in 2020, and additionally as a speciality registrar in anaesthesia in 2021. In 2022 he was admitted to the Fellowship of the Royal College of Anaesthetists (FRCA).

In February 2022 Dr Alderman joined the AI and digital health research team at University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, and began studying towards a PhD. He is interested in how machine learning and artificial intelligence can be safely applied to health and social care, enhancing treatment quality and patient experience whilst ensuring robust quality assessment to protect people from harm.

His doctoral research focuses on how data driven technologies – including artificial intelligence algorithms – can introduce biases and inequity into healthcare, and how this can be mitigated. He will focus on the perioperative care pathway, which includes patients who are admitted for surgery, and their subsequent recovery. He will research how risk prediction scoring systems are used by medical professionals, and assess how these affect patients’ recovery and other outcomes.

He is supervised locally by Dr Xiaoxuan Liu, Professor Alastair Denniston and Dr Dhruv Parekh, all from the University of Birmingham, and by Professor Charlotte Summers from the University of Cambridge.