Thomas Caruso, PhD, MBA, PMP, is Associate Director, Program Operations, for the Research Infrastructure program at the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI). He provides oversight for PCORnet, the National Patient-Centered Clinical Research Network.

Caruso has more than 30 years of experience as a strategic growth consultant, project and program manager, and program developer. He has worked with clients in health, pharma, biotech, telecomm, academia, investment banking, and government to evaluate investments and product concepts, launch new businesses, identify new opportunities, capture business, and manage products/programs/projects.

Before joining PCORI, he worked for the School of Information and Library Science at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, in partnership with the Center for the Advancement of Health IT at RTI International, to build a Self-Generated Health Information Exchange (SGHIx) and SGHIx Consortium. He also served as project manager on a PCORI-funded Patient-Powered Research Network project, CCFA Partners. He also served as a consultant in a program manager role on a Clinical Trials Database support contract with NIH.  Before this, he worked for SRA International as a project manager with the Center for Information Technology at NIH. He has also held research program development and management positions at Virginia Tech, where he won and managed NIH training grants, spearheaded funding and design of an infectious disease research facility, built an animal information management system, participated in NCI’s caBIG, managed industry relationships, and built major multi-disciplinary research initiatives. Earlier, he was project leader for a financial systems business.

He has a SM in management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a PhD in pharmacology from the University of Minnesota. He also holds a Project Management Professional (PMP) certification.