Director
Digital Society Initiative

Prof. Dr. med. Claudia Witt

Claudia M. Witt has been Full Professor of Complementary and Integrative Medicine at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Zurich (UZH) since 2014. She is a physician and holds a Master of Business Administration (MBA) in Health Care Management. In 2006, she completed her habilitation in Epidemiology and Social Medicine at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin. Before moving to Zurich, she was a W2 Professor and Acting Director of the Institute for Social Medicine, Epidemiology, and Health Economics at the Charité. From 2014 to 2023, she was a part-time Professor of Primary Care at the University of Maryland in Baltimore. At UZH, she serves as Co-Director of the Digital Society Initiative and is a member of the Digital Strategy Board. She is actively engaged in interdisciplinary and innovative initiatives across faculties – including as a member of the Steering Committee of the Center for Reproducible Science and Research Synthesis and of the One Health Institute. In addition, she is part of the Steering Committee of the School for Transdisciplinary Studies. She leads the interprofessional doctoral program Care and Rehabilitation Science at the Faculty of Medicine and is a member of the Swiss Academy of Medical Sciences.

Her research focuses on the digital transformation of health care, particularly digital health interventions and artificial intelligence (AI). She integrates clinical research, evidence synthesis, health economics, and implementation research with participatory approaches to actively involve stakeholders. Further research interests include comparative effectiveness research on complex non-pharmacological interventions, mixed-methods designs, and the study of treatment expectations in the context of placebo and nocebo effects. Beyond this, she leads and contributes to the implementation of strategy labs and think tanks on topics such as digital twins and the university of the future, generating new impulses for science and society. In doing so, she plays a key role in advancing digital health responsibly and in integrating innovative approaches into medicine.