Besa H. Bauta

Dr. Bauta is currently the Chief Executive Officer of Rosetta Labs, a novel DataOps startup focused on fundamentally reshaping the modern enterprise data operations by empowering engineering teams to capture, translate, and automate database structures across complex multi-cloud and on-premises estates. She is also an Adjunct Assistant Professor at New York University - Silver and has taught both public health and social work at graduate and doctoral levels. In addition to her academic background, Dr. Bauta is an experienced technology executive that has actualized large-scale digital transformation projects and brought in novel technology solutions that enabled effective decision-making in healthcare, private and government sectors. She can bring innovative technologies to address business problems and is able to communicate complex technical concepts in a clear and concise manner, including engaging stakeholders across various business sectors to map out issues and provide technical and operational solutions.

In her technology roles she served as the Chief Information Officer (CIO) as well as Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) at the Jewish Boards Information Technology Services (ITS) Division, where she focused on enterprise-wide infrastructure modernization projects, such as migration to cloud computing, enhancing cybersecurity, and implementing emerging technologies with the goal increasing efficiency, reducing costs, and enhancing client experiences and outcomes. She managed technology assets, including budgeting and vendor selection and management for a 250-million-dollar behavioral health organization. During her tenure there she created a Health Informatics division and digitized treatment by implementing Telehealth and remote support technologies including piloting and testing Ambient AI and scribe notetaking with Microsoft and Suki.AI, as well as recording and analyzing provider-client interactions. A key project was building out an AI-Based contact center and communication system with telecommunication partners T-Mobile and Dialpad, with the goal of providing faster response time for crisis calls and therapy appointments. This approach was recognized as an Innovative Employee Enablement technological intervention and won 2nd place for T-Mobile for Business 2025 Innovate Awards.

Prior to her CIO position, Dr. Bauta was the Chief Data and Analytics Officer/CDAO for the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, Office of Data and System Improvement (ODSI), where she managed analytics, data science, and digital transformation initiatives, and data assets for a 2.6-billion-dollar state division. In August 2022 the ODSI team (100 plus professionals) under her guidance won the TASSCC Project Excellence Award for Data Sharing by implementing data visualization and analytic tools to support state decision making and integrating over 24 thousand data streams in less than 6 months. In addition, her team of IT and Data professionals developed a Machine Learning/ML model to assess potential operational and staffing risks. The algorithm allowed the state division to identify organizations at risk and intervene early by scoring agencies on multiple parameters. Dr. Bauta also served as a primary liaison between DFPS and other state agencies and was the State DFPS representative to the Texas Department of Information Resources (DIR) Data Management Advisory (DMAC) committee. Her work led to development of Master Data Management (MDM) and Governance Processes for Texas State Data and provide citizens with access to DFPS monthly data on key measures in order to improve transparency and allow stakeholders and the public access to trends and data across many years via the DFPS Data Book.

Her expertise in data/technology also includes experience as a Chief Data Officer (CDO), Chief Compliance Officer (CPO), and Information Privacy Officer (IPO) at MercyFirst, an organization that provides health and mental health services for clients in NYC and Long Island. As the divisional lead for the Research, Evaluation, Analytics, and Compliance for Health (REACH) at MercyFirst, she oversaw data integration technology, infrastructure development, research, evaluation, and analytics. At MercyFirst she developed an analytics team (REACH) that provided daily operational support to staff and key data and metrics with the goal of reducing compliance risks. Dr. Bauta’s research experience includes being the Research Director for United States Agency for International Development (USAID) community-based education project in Afghanistan and the Senior Director of Research and Evaluation at the Center for Evidence-Based Implementation and Research (CEBIR) at Catholic Guardian Services working on R01 and other federally funded (AHRQ and SAMHSA) research initiatives.

Dr. Bauta also has experience as a consultant and startup advisor for new and emerging ventures in Technology, Biomedical, Pharma, and Healthcare. In her role as a consultant, she served as the Chief Analytics Officer (CAO) for Precision Human Services where she provided consultation support to healthcare organizations in their digital transformation initiatives. This included developing practical roadmaps to implement and scale technologies at large. As an entrepreneur and startup founder, Dr. Bauta was one of the founders of the Social Impact AI Lab (SIAIL), whose goal was to support the digital transformation of the human service sector. SIAIL won the national Social Determinants of Health Innovation Challenge sponsored by the Robert Wood Jonson Foundation in 2020 and was a finalist in the NYU Berkley Center for Entrepreneurship 2021 challenge. This venture led to the founding of Augintel which provides NLP based insights to the behavioral health sector. She continued post-competition as a coach and sponsor to graduate and doctoral students at NYU Stern for the past 5 years and under her guidance and mentorship the three teams that she coached won the 300K innovation challenge in healthcare including recently CaroRhythm (2024) (non-invasive medical device that provides point-of-care carotid artery monitoring for strokes) and Vitalis Regenerative Materials (2025) (extended release growth factor to support faster orthopedic wound healing).

She holds a Ph.D. from NYU with training in Health Services and Implementation Science, an MPH in Health Promotion and Disease Prevention from NYU College of Global Public Health, and an MSW in Clinical Social Work with Evidence Based Training from NYU Silver School of Social Work. Dr. Bauta has Psychoanalytic training from the Institute of Psychoanalytic Education, NYU Langone School of Medicine, Division of Psychiatry, and a BA from Rutgers University with training in Evolutionary Anthropology, and studied Biomedical Engineering at Rutgers University School of Engineering. She served as the Associate Editor for the journal of Administration and Policy in Mental Health and Mental Health Services Research, for AI in Mental Health from 2019-2022, Telehealth and Medicine Today, 2022-2025. She is the current Editorial Board Member of CDO Magazine, Business of Data Global Advisory Board judge, and one of the founders and members of World Leaders in Data and AI.

Dr. Bauta was selected as an Ambassador for the AI Time Journal (8/22) and was invited to present on October 2022 at the University of Florida, College of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry’s, Bioethics Week on ethical considerations of implementing AI applications in healthcare. She also served as a mentor for the 2024 Biomedical Data Science Innovation Lab (BDSIL) an NIH funded project at the University of Virginia School of Data Science, that was a hybrid academic program held in June 2024 in San Diego, California, focusing on Building Partnerships for Generative AI Training in Biomedical and Clinical Research, and involved 31 junior faculty and researchers alongside 5 senior investigators as mentors. She provided the keynote for the Alliance for Data Science and AI at the 2023 ADSA Annual Meeting held at the University of Texas San Antonio – College of AI, Cyber and Computing. She co-presented with NYU colleagues at Kaohsiung Medical University in Taiwan on September 11th, 2025, on “Harnessing AI for Worldwide Health Solutions: Case examples for Behavioral Health and Mental Health” as part of a conference focusing on “AI and mental health: interdisciplinary perspectives and integrated solutions- from behavior, neuroscience, gender, and education perspectives.” Dr. Bauta was invited to provide a guest lecture at the University of Oklahoma – Anne and Henry Zarrow School of Social Work (December 2025), on the topic "The Next Frontier of AI-Driven Client/Customer Experience” and how AI-based technologies will augment health and mental health provision. And was accepted to the prestigious Summer Institute in Computational Social Science at Florida Atlantic University (SICSS-FAU 2026) to intensive training on AI, ML, data science, and advanced computational methods (June 1–5, 2026).

She has provided thought leadership in the area of AI and healthcare and has been invited to present on various podcasts such as Women in Data – AI Across Spheres, Data Bytes Podcasts (2025), looking at the challenges and opportunities with augmented and AI technologies, Microsoft AI Skills on How to Build a Culture of Skilling: Making Space to Develop Your Nonprofit Team (Jun 2, 2025), Human Centered Design, Episode 056-How Design Helps Drive Adoption of Data Products Used for Social Work (January 12, 2021), The Business of Data Podcast – Spotify: Healthcare Data leaders Must Work Together in the World Post-COVID-19 (Aug 24, 2020).

Dr. Bauta has extensive expertise in information systems, data/analytics, healthcare services, translational research, evaluation, and global public health. She has participated in various global health initiatives and was asked to be part the Global Albanian Health Professionals COVID-19 Response Team by the Germin Foundation, to assist in building the public health infrastructure for Southeast Europe during the COVID pandemic. That work led to supporting local ministries of health in building infectious disease response policies and teams to address future epidemics. She has been recognized throughout her career for her information systems and technology work, such as the T-Mobile Innovate Awards 2025 [Oct 21, 2025] for Employee Enablement by utilizing AI technology to modernize call center functions for the Jewish Board. Was recognized as the City and State of NY, 2024 Above and Beyond Power List of Women who are leading innovation in the state. She was a Changemaker in the Field of Data Finalist (Oct. 2022), recognized as the Top 25 Women in AI: US Healthcare & Pharma (Sept. 2022), and was selected as a Global Data Power Woman and key influencer in shaping the landscape of business and pioneering the field of data and analytics by CDO magazine for three consecutive years (2022, 2021, and 2020). In addition, she was also selected as the top 100 Data and Analytics professionals in 2021, 2024 and 2025, and by DATAx as New York's top 21 CDOs, advancing the fields Data, Analytics, and AI.

Dr. Bauta is a published author who has written about technology, global health, non-communicable diseases, and improving health and mental health systems. She has worked both domestically and internationally on building information technology and advanced analytic systems, implementing health/mental health projects. Her current research focuses on optimizing processes to improve health outcomes, protection of patient health information, including ethical practices in implementing Artificial/Augmented Intelligence technologies in human services and healthcare and understanding Algorithmic biases, hallucinations and system errors.