Deborah Seale

Southern Illinois University School of Medicine executive director of telehealth networks and programs

Since the early 1990s, Dr. Seale has specialized in building community-academic partnerships to support the adoption and utilization of information and communication technologies in health care–particularly in rural and underserved areas. She joined Saint Louis University in 2011 as a faculty member in Health Informatics and Information Management. Before joining SLU, she worked at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine for nine years developing a statewide telehealth program. For 15 years prior to moving to the Midwest, Dr. Seale worked at the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) in Galveston, Texas where she established several rural telemedicine programs.

Before becoming involved with telehealth at UTMB, Dr. Seale worked in the research office as a biostatistician and in an educational outreach program (known as the East Texas Area Health Education Center) where she served in several roles including program evaluator, evaluation and information technology specialist, and assistant director for planning and technology. While still with the educational outreach program, she assumed the role as interim director of the newly established telehealth unit at UTMB. 

Dr. Seale received her PhD from Illinois State University in Normal, Illinois. Her Bachelor and Master of Arts degrees in sociology are from Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas.