Dr. Besa Bauta serves as a Chief Data Officer and Chief Compliance Officer for MercyFirst, an organization that provides health and mental health services for clients in NYC, and as an NYU Adjunct Assistant Professor in public health and social work. As the divisional lead for the Research, Evaluation, Analytics, and Compliance for Health (REACH), she oversees data integration technology, infrastructure development, research, evaluation, and analytics. Previously she served as the Research Director for a USAID community-based education project in Afghanistan and as the Senior Director of Research and Evaluation at the Center for Evidence-Based Implementation and Research (CEBIR) at CGS. She holds a Ph.D. from NYU with training in Health Services and Implementation Science, MPH in Health Promotion and Disease Prevention from NYU College of Global Public Health, and an MSW in Clinical Social Work from NYU Silver School of Social Work. Dr. Bauta has Psychoanalytic training from the Institute of Psychoanalytic Education, NYU Langone Division of Psychiatry, and a BA from Rutgers University with training in Evolutionary Anthropology. Dr. Bauta has extensive expertise in monitoring, evaluation, data systems, mental health, social, and health services. Her current research focuses on optimizing health systems to improve health outcomes, protections of health information including ethical practices in implementing Artificial Intelligence technologies in social services and healthcare. Additional research interests focus on psychiatric epidemiology, global mental health, and integrating maternal and child health services into primary care.
