Society for Medical Decision Making Honors UMIT TIROL and Harvard Professor Uwe Siebert with 2026 Career Achievement Award

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His influence extends well beyond research. Professor Siebert is a Past President of SMDM and serves as recent Past President of ISPOR – The Professional Society for Health Economics and Outcomes Research. Throughout his career, he has advised governments, health technology assessment agencies, professional societies, and international organizations on evidence-based policy and healthcare decision making. He has authored more than 500 publications, including scientific articles, textbook chapters, policy briefs, and HTA reports, and serves in editorial leadership roles for several internationally recognized scientific journals.

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Professor Siebert is also a dedicated educator, teaching courses in health technology assessment, decision sciences, and causal inference from real-world data at the HTADS Program at UMIT TIROL and Decision Analysis in Clinical Research in the summer program at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

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Accepting the award, Professor Siebert reflected on the mentors, colleagues, students, and collaborators who shaped his career, emphasizing that scientific advancement is built not only on ideas but on the people who inspire, challenge, and support one another.

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“I am deeply honored to receive this award, and I am truly grateful for this special recognition,” said Professor Siebert. “This award reflects not only my own work but also the dedication and expertise of my entire team. It also reflects the support, encouragement, and inspiration I have received throughout my career from my students, fellows, colleagues, mentors, friends, and my family. SMDM has been an extraordinary intellectual home, and I am grateful to this community for the opportunities it has given me to learn, collaborate, and grow.”

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One of the most poignant moments of Professor Siebert’s remarks came as he reflected on the profound influence of his longtime mentor, Milton Weinstein, PhD, whose Harvard course first introduced him to decision analysis and ultimately shaped the direction of his career. Professor Weinstein received SMDM’s Career Achievement Award in 1996, making Professor Siebert’s recognition especially meaningful as it comes exactly thirty years after his mentor received the Society’s highest honor.

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“Careers are built not only on ideas,” Professor Siebert reflected during his acceptance remarks, “but also on the people who inspire us, believe in us, and open doors.”

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Throughout his address, Professor Siebert highlighted the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration and working directly with healthcare decision-makers to translate research into meaningful improvements in patient care. Drawing on examples from his own career, he described how collaborative decision modeling informed national COVID-19 vaccination strategies and cancer screening policies, illustrating how rigorous decision science can have a lasting impact on healthcare systems and population health.

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He concluded by encouraging the next generation of researchers to embrace collaboration across regions and disciplines and to remember that one of the most valuable skills in science is listening, to colleagues, patients, decision-makers, and one another.

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Professor Siebert joins a distinguished group of Career Achievement Award recipients whose work has defined and advanced the field of medical decision making over the past three decades. Previous honorees include Anne Stiggelbout, John B. Wong, Dawn Stacey, Michael Kattan, Doug Coyle, Karen Kuntz, Murray Krahn, M.G. Myriam Hunink, Valerie Reyna, Ivar Kristiansen, Alvin Mushlin, Mark Roberts, Donald Redelmeier, Annette O’Connor, Howard Raiffa, J. Sanford (Sandy) Schwartz, Alan Garber, Barbara J. McNeil, Peter Wakker, David J. Spiegelhalter, Allan Detsky, Joseph Pliskin, Jerome P. Kassirer, Daniel Kahneman, George Torrance, John Eisenberg, Dennis Fryback, Harold Sox, Arthur Elstein, Milton Weinstein, and Stephen Pauker.