The Digital Patient Project Team
C. Donald “Don” Combs, Ph.D., FSSH, is the Founding Director of the National Center for Collaboration in Medical Modeling and Simulation (NCCMMS). In addition, he serves as the Senior Associate Vice President and Dean of the Macon & Joan Brock Virginia Health Sciences EVMS School of Health Professions at Old Dominion University (ODU), Norfolk, VA, USA. Dr. Combs holds the academic rank of Professor of Health Professions at ODU.
Dr. Combs is a leader in the field of digital medicine and serves as Project Director for the Digital Patient Framework and the Digital Patient Tool Kit projects. He was the lead co-editor of the seminal book on the Digital Patient, namely The Digital Patient: Advancing Healthcare, Research and Education published by John Wiley and Sons in 2016. He has presented his research at leading educational and scientific conferences around the world.
Dr. Combs was recognized for his contributions to medical education in 2015 when he received the President’s Award for Outstanding Achievement and for his work in medical simulation through his selection as a Fellow of the Society for Simulation in Healthcare (FSSH) in 2018.
Dr. Combs holds B.A with high honors and M.A. degrees from Texas Tech University and a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC). In his free time, Dr. Combs enjoys golf, reading, and travelling.
Bob Armstrong is Executive Director of the Sentara Center for Healthcare Simulation and Immersive Learning (SCHSIL) at the Macon & Joan Brock Virginia Health Sciences (VHS) at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, USA. He is also the Program Director for the NCCMMS, as well as Director of Corporate Relations at VHS. Bob is a Fellow of the Society for Simulation in Healthcare, and a former president of that same organization. He a strong advocate for patient safety and healthcare training and education technologies around the world.
Bob has a long history in training development within DoD and across multiple industries. At SCHSIL, he leads a staff of 180 focused on creating and delivering high quality healthcare training and educational simulation to undergraduate, graduate, and practicing healthcare learners.
Bob is a retires Marine Lieutenant Colonel; in his spare time he enjoys golf and working on autos.
Dr. Faryaneh Poursardar is a Research Assistant Professor at Old Dominion University’s Health, Education, AI, and Learning (HEAL) Center, with a joint appointment in ODU’s School of Data Science. Her interdisciplinary research focuses on artificial intelligence, web and data science, and human-centered computing, with particular emphasis on developing trustworthy and adaptive AI systems for healthcare and other high-consequence decision-making environments. Her work spans large language models, retrieval-augmented generation, machine learning, multimodal AI, human–AI interaction, and intelligent decision-support systems. She leads and collaborates on federally and state-funded research involving AI-enabled community health support, and simulation-based healthcare applications.
Dr. Poursardar is particularly interested in translating advances in AI into practical technologies that improve healthcare access, decision making, and patient outcomes. Her current work includes developing intelligent health-support systems for underserved communities, AI-assisted clinical and surgical decision-support tools, and methods for evaluating how humans interact with and rely on AI recommendations. She is also actively engaged in interdisciplinary education, workforce development, and student mentoring, including leading data science and AI training initiatives for university students, faculty, and government partners such as NASA and the U.S. Navy. She has taught a broad range of undergraduate and graduate courses and has mentored students at multiple stages of their academic development, including undergraduate and graduate researchers participating in NSF REU programs, capstone projects, master’s theses, and doctoral research at ODU and other institutions.
Through her research, teaching, mentorship, and community partnerships, she works to translate advances in AI into solutions that address real-world social and healthcare needs and to build collaborative teams that connect computing, modeling and simulation, clinical expertise, and community engagement. Dr. Poursardar earned her Ph.D. in Computer Science from Texas A&M University.
