Our Team

Keisuke Nakagawa is Director of Strategic Impact & Growth for the Jacobs Center for Health Innovation at UC San Diego Health. He leads new ventures, strategic partnerships, and growth initiatives that accelerate the adoption and scale of innovative health technologies. His work focuses on co-development of novel technologies, validation in clinical settings, and maximizing impact through venture, operations, and policy.

Previously, as Director of Innovation at UC Davis Health, Dr. Nakagawa spearheaded the health system's digital innovation efforts and established an open innovation partnership with Amazon Web Services to launch the world’s first Cloud Innovation Center within an academic medical center. Under his leadership, the center drove advancements in digital health and open innovation, including the development of a digital front door platform that delivered over six million patient messages annually, generating significant savings for the health system. He also collaborated with organizations such as the World Health Organization and the Society of Thoracic Surgeons to create open-source solutions addressing health misinformation and equitable patient-reported outcomes.

Dr. Nakagawa’s diverse background includes launching startups, consulting for pharmaceutical companies, payors, and investors, and contributing to health care legislation such as the Affordable Care Act and the HITECH Act during his tenure at the Congressional Budget Office. He has published extensively on topics including artificial intelligence, autonomous robotic surgery, tissue engineering and health informatics.

A former Fulbright Scholar to Bangladesh, Dr. Nakagawa worked with the country’s largest NGO to develop and scale a national micro health insurance program for rural villagers and pregnant women. He has served on numerous boards and committees including two terms on the National Board of Directors of the Fulbright Association, the HIMSS Innovation Committee, and currently serves as the Co-Chair of the Social Determinants of Health Committee at HIMSS.

Dr. Nakagawa earned his MD from the University of California Davis School of Medicine and holds a B.A. in Biological Sciences from Cornell University.