Elias Grünewald

Postdoctoral Researcher, Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin

Dr.-Ing. Elias Grünewald

I build trustworthy information systems for medicine, from cloud-native data streams to clinical decision support and AI.

At Charité, I lead the Data Analytics working group. We turn continuous data from wearables and intensive care into interoperable, analysis-ready data, build decision support on top of it, and engineer privacy and transparency into every step.

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Portrait of Elias Grünewald
Publications
56
Consortium led as PI (REACT)
EUR 2.7M
Distinguished Paper Award
ICSOC 2022
Theses supervised
30

Research

Research topics

Wearables and bedside monitors now record patients around the clock, and AI agents are starting to act on these data. The data systems underneath were built for nightly batches, and their hidden choices shape clinical conclusions. My group builds open, cloud-native systems that turn continuous physiological data into trustworthy inputs for clinical decision support, foundation models and AI agents, without the data leaving institutional control.

01

Cloud-Native and Streaming Systems

Event-driven platforms that ingest continuous data from wearables and bedside monitors, map it to FHIR in the stream, and serve real-time analytics on infrastructure the hospital controls.

  • Kafka & stream processing
  • FHIR
  • Lakehouse
  • Kubernetes
02

Clinical Data & Decision Support

Clinical data repositories and decision support for intensive care and perioperative medicine and beyond. Building on the shoulders of giants to harmonize routine data.

  • Decision support
  • Intensive care
  • OMOP & FHIR
  • Real-world data
03

Trustworthy AI

Foundation models and language models that clinicians can rely on because they are calibrated, robust under distribution shift, and used by AI agents only through purpose-bound, auditable interfaces.

  • Foundation models
  • Calibration
  • LLM agents
  • Benchmarks
04

Privacy Engineering & Transparency

Privacy built into the dataflow, with machine-readable transparency, personal-data discovery, anonymization of data in motion, and technical support for GDPR, EHDS and the EU AI Act.

  • Anonymization
  • Transparency
  • Accountability
  • GDPR & EU AI Act

Funding

Projects and funding

  1. REACT – AI-based Clinical Decision Support Systems for Intensive Medicine

    German Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space (BMFTR)

    • Funding amount: 2,700,000 €
    • Funding line: Zukunft eHealth
    • Important partners: Departments of Intensive Care at Charité and IKIM at University Medicine Essen
    • Role: Principal Investigator and Speaker of the Consortium

    10/2026 – 09/2029

  2. Wearables: Von der Pilotphase zur klinischen Routine

    Private donors for Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin

    • Funding amount: 2,400,000 €
    • Important partners: TU Berlin, BIH, HPI
    • Role: Acting Project Lead for Institute of Medical Informatics (PI: Prof. Felix Balzer)

    04/2025 – 03/2030

  3. VERTEX: Vanderbilt–Charité Exchange on Clinical Repositories and Translational Excellence: Exploring Epic-based CDSS Pilots across two leading Academic Medical Centers

    Stiftung Charité

    • Funding amount: 7,000 €
    • Important partners: Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC), Charité
    • Role: Principal Investigator, Author of the proposal

    10/2026 – 08/2027

  4. CRC/Transregio 418 Foundations of Circadian Medicine

    German Research Foundation (DFG)

    • Funding amount: 500,000 €
    • Important partners: University of Lübeck, LMU Munich, TU Munich, DIfE Potsdam, Université de Genève
    • Role: Acting Project Lead C01 (PIs: Prof. Felix Balzer, Prof. Claudia Spies)

    10/2025 – 07/2029

  5. TRANSFER – Optimal therapies through data-driven decision-making and support systems

    German Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space (BMFTR)

    • Funding amount: 156,000 €
    • Important partners: ID Berlin, SectorCon, Charité, DFKI, TU Berlin
    • Role: Acting Project Lead (PI: Prof. Felix Balzer)

    07/2025 – 07/2028

  6. INDICATE – A federated infrastructure for Data of Intensive Care Units in Europe

    European Union

    • Funding amount: 180,000 €
    • Important partners: MedUni Wien and more than 20 institutions
    • Role: Acting Project Lead at Charité (PIs: Prof. Stefan Schaller, Prof. Felix Balzer)

    12/2024 – 05/2028

  7. CORR – Charité Outcomes Research Repository

    • Scope: Analysis-ready cohorts from ICU stays and surgical procedures, based on a shared library of more than 4,700 clinician-validated computable concepts; more than 40 clinical projects run on CORR
    • Important partners: Charité clinical departments, Health Data Platform
    • Role: Member of the technical and data team (data governance, privacy engineering, technical advice)

  8. TOUCAN – Transparency in Cloud-Native Architecture and Engineering

    German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF)

    • Funding amount: 100,000 €
    • Important partners: TU Berlin, Software AG
    • Role: Principal Investigator, Author of the proposal

    01/2023 – 03/2024

  9. & more

    Further projects of the Data Analytics working group at Charité

Awards and honors

  1. NextBIG – eHealth Career Development grant

    Charité, Universitätsmedizin Essen, TU Dresden

    2025

  2. Berlin der Begegnung 2023 Fellowship

    Genshagener Kreis e.V.

    02/2023

  3. Distinguished Paper Award

    20th Intl. Conference on Service-Oriented Computing

    11/2022

  4. Erasmus+ scholarship & Alliance4Tech membership

    Italy

    09/2018 – 01/2019

  5. Erasmus+ scholarship

    Spain

    09/2016 – 02/2017

  6. Germany's National Scholarship (BMBF Deutschlandstipendium)

    10/2017 – 09/2020

Publications

Selected publications

All 56 publications

Career

Professional experience

  1. Postdoctoral Researcher

    Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin

    • Institute of Medical Informatics (IMI) and Business Division IT (Prof. Dr. med. Dr. rer. nat. Felix Balzer)
    • Head of the Working Group Data Analytics (leading 12 team members)
    • Research on information systems, privacy engineering, and data analytics and engineering
    • Acting project lead on numerous third-party funded projects
    • PI and Speaker of the BMFTR Consortium REACT (Zukunft eHealth)
    • Coordinator of the Charité Service Unit Data Science
    • Founder of the Charité Coding Clinic
    • Technical and business process strategy consultant for the Chief (Medical) Information Officers
    • Technical Lead for the Implementation of the Charité Clinical Data Repository (CDR)

    05/2024 – today

  2. Associated Researcher

    Einstein Center Digital Future (ECDF), Berlin

    • Member of the Board of Directors (10/2026 – today)

    05/2025 – today

  3. Lecturer

    Technische Universität Berlin

    • Faculty VII – Economics and Management
    • Research Group Business and Technology Law (Prof. Dr. Martin S. Haase)

    10/2024 – today

  4. Research Associate / Doctoral Researcher

    Technische Universität Berlin

    • Research Group Information Systems Engineering (Prof. Dr.-Ing. Stefan Tai)
    • Research on privacy engineering, cloud computing, and computers and society
    • Project leader for TOUCAN (Transparency in Cloud-Native Architecture and Engineering, BMBF)
    • Software Campus IT executive program and leadership trainings
    • Worked in the DaSKITA project (Data Sovereignty through AI-based Transparency and Access, BMJV)

    11/2020 – 03/2024

  5. Student Research Assistant

    Technische Universität Berlin

    • Information Systems Engineering (Dr. Frank Pallas, Prof. Stefan Tai)
    • Developed software for GDPR transparency and contributed to privacy-related research projects

    04/2020 – 09/2020

  6. Student Teaching Assistant

    Technische Universität Berlin, Germany

    • Faculty IV – Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
    • Designed course materials and conducted written and oral examinations
    • Instructed tutorial sessions, consultation hours, poster workshops, and programming exercises
    • Mentored and trained students individually and in teams

    10/2015 – 09/2019

Education

Education

  1. Doctorate (Dr.-Ing. / PhD) in Computer Science (magna cum laude)

    Technische Universität Berlin

    • Dissertation: Cloud Native Privacy Engineering for Transparency and Accountability

    03/2024

  2. Information Systems Management

    Master of Science, Technische Universität Berlin

    • Thesis: Towards a Transparency Information Language and Toolkit for Privacy Engineering

    04/2018 – 10/2020

  3. Politecnico di Milano

    Italy; Erasmus+ grant & Alliance4Tech membership

    09/2018 – 01/2019

  4. Universidad de Sevilla

    Spain; Erasmus+ grant

    09/2016 – 02/2017

  5. Business Informatics

    Bachelor of Science, Technische Universität Berlin

    • Thesis: Design and Implementation of an Extensible Framework for Accessing Open Government Data

    10/2014 – 05/2018

Teaching

Teaching

I have more than nine years of teaching experience at TU Berlin, Charité, FU Berlin and beyond, in courses ranging from seven to more than 1,000 students, in English and German.

Teaching

  1. Bodies in Digital Contexts – Interdisciplinary Hackathon

    80 students

    10/2026 – 04/2027

  2. Advanced Distributed Systems Prototyping: Wearables

    8 students

    10/2026 – 04/2027

  3. Data Protection Law

    50 students, TU Berlin

    10/2026 – 03/2027

  4. Ethics and Policy Questions

    50 students

    06/2025

  5. AI in Medicine

    25 students

    08/2024

See all 22 coursesShow fewer

Teaching

As Postdoctoral Researcher

  1. Bodies in Digital Contexts – Interdisciplinary Hackathon

    80 students

    10/2026 – 04/2027

  2. Advanced Distributed Systems Prototyping: Wearables

    8 students

    10/2026 – 04/2027

  3. Advanced Distributed Systems Prototyping: Wearables

    8 students

    10/2025 – 03/2026

  4. Ethics and Policy Questions

    50 students

    06/2025

  5. AI in Medicine

    25 students

    08/2024

  6. Ethics and Policy Questions

    50 students

    06/2024

As Lecturer (Lehrbeauftragter)

  1. Data Protection Law

    50 students, TU Berlin

    10/2026 – 03/2027

  2. Data Protection Law

    50 students, TU Berlin

    10/2025 – 03/2026

  3. Data Protection Law

    50 students, TU Berlin

    10/2024 – 03/2025

As Research Associate

  1. Information Governance

    400 students

    10/2022 – 03/2023

  2. Information Governance

    500 students

    10/2023 – 03/2024

  3. Cloud Native Architecture and Engineering

    75 students

    04/2023 – 09/2023

  4. Advanced Distributed Systems Prototyping: Cloud Prototyping

    7 students

    04/2022 – 09/2022

  5. Programming Practical: Data Mgmt. and Web-based App. Systems

    25 students

    04/2022 – 09/2022

  6. Advanced Distributed Systems Prototyping: Cloud Prototyping

    14 students

    10/2021 – 03/2022

  7. Programming Practical: Data Mgmt. and Web-based App. Systems

    25 students

    04/2021 – 09/2021

As Student Teaching Assistant

  1. Lecture Series: Internet and Privacy

    400 students

    04/2019 – 09/2019

  2. Information Governance

    200 students

    10/2017 – 09/2018, 04/2019 – 03/2020

  3. Information Systems and Data Analytics

    1000 students

    04/2016 – 09/2016, 04/2017 – 09/2017

  4. Introduction into Programming with Java

    350 students

    10/2015 – 03/2016

Guest lectures

  1. Privacy-Aware Software Architectures

    Ethics and Policy Questions, FU Berlin / Charité Berlin

    06/2023

  2. Transparency for Privacy in Practice

    RELINK workshops, Oslo Metropolitan University

    09/2022

Mentoring

Thesis supervision

  1. Doctoral Theses

    4

  2. Master's Theses

    15

  3. Bachelor's Theses

    11

Service

Program Committee Memberships & Reviewing

  1. Digital Health Perspectives Workshop (GI)

    PC Member

    2026

  2. IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing

    External Reviewer

    2026

  3. Journal of Medical Internet Research (JMIR)

    Reviewer

    2026

  4. Annual Privacy Forum

    PC Member

    2026

  5. ISCB/GMDS Annual Conference

    PC Member

    2026

  6. Medical Informatics Europe Conference

    PC Member

    2026

  7. Intl. Conf. on Informatics, Management, and Technology in Healthcare

    PC Member

    2026

  8. ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (ACM FAccT)

    PC Member

    2026

  9. Privacy Symposium

    PC Member

    2026

  10. GI/GMDS Workshop: Digital Health Perspectives

    PC Member

    2025

  11. EFMI Special Topic Conference 2025

    PC Member

    2025

  12. GMDS Annual Conference

    PC Member

    2025

  13. Journal of Parallel and Distributed Computing

    External Reviewer

    2025

  14. Elsevier Information and Software Technology

    External Reviewer

    2025

  15. Medical Informatics Europe Conference

    PC Member

    2025

  16. IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing

    External Reviewer

    2025

  17. Annual Privacy Forum

    PC Member

    2025

  18. World Congress on Medical and Health Informatics

    Reviewer

    2025

  19. Privacy Symposium

    PC Member

    2025

  20. Medical Informatics Europe Conference

    PC Member

    2024

  21. Annual Privacy Forum

    PC Member

    2024

  22. IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing

    External Reviewer

    2024

  23. Computers, Privacy and Data Protection Conference (CPDP)

    PC Member

    2024

  24. IEEE International Conference on Fog and Edge Computing (IEEE ICFEC)

    PC Member

    2024

  25. ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (ACM FAccT)

    PC Member

    2023

  26. Springer Computing Journal

    External Reviewer

    2023

  27. Workshop on Security, Privacy, Organizations, and Systems Engineering

    PC Member

    2021, 2022

Academic Service

  1. Led and managed committee meetings and workshops

  2. Coordinated propositions with science policy, university rectorates, faculty members, and students

  3. Conducted media relations and science communication

Representing Academic staff

  1. Board of Directors, Einstein Center Digital Future (ECDF), Berlin

    10/2026 – today

  2. Digital (Junior) Clinician Scientist Board, Charité/BIH

    05/2025 – today

  3. Board of the Institute of Medical Informatics, Charité

    06/2024 – today

  4. Professorship Appointment Committee Ethics, Policy, and Meta Research

    09/2026 – 11/2026

  5. Professorship Appointment Committee Semantic Interoperability and AI in Healthcare

    09/2025 – 03/2026

  6. Professorship Appointment Committee Digital Technologies for the Reconstruction of Complex Facial Defects

    05/2025 – 12/2025

  7. Faculty Board, EECS, TU Berlin

    04/2022 – 03/2024

  8. Academic Senate, TU Berlin

    01/2022 – 03/2023

  9. Extended Academic Senate (Vice Chair)

    01/2022 – 03/2023

  10. Scientific Advisory Board (Collaboration Platform), Berlin University Alliance

    04/2021 – 03/2023

  11. General Assembly, European Universities Initiative ENHANCE

    04/2021 – 03/2024

  12. Speaker of Early-career Researchers within ENHANCE

    04/2022 – 03/2024

  13. Steering Committee, Human Resources Strategy for Researchers

    04/2021 – 03/2024

  14. Institute Council for Business Informatics, TU Berlin

    04/2021 – 03/2024

  15. Science policy initiatives Reformfraktion, Mittelbauinitiative & WM-Forum

    10/2020 – 03/2024

Representing Students

  1. Student Advisory Board, European Universities Initiative ENHANCE

    11/2019 – 10/2020

  2. Academic Senate, TU Berlin

    04/2019 – 10/2020

  3. Extended Academic Senate, TU Berlin

    04/2019 – 10/2020

  4. Ethics Committee, EECS

    02/2019 – 10/2020

  5. Professorship Appointment Committee Software and Business Engineering

    11/2016 – 10/2017

  6. Professorship Appointment Committee Intelligent Systems

    04/2018 – 06/2019

  7. Faculty Board, EECS, TU Berlin

    04/2017 – 10/2020

  8. Examination Boards Information Systems Management, Computer Science, and EIT Digital ICT Innovation

    04/2017 – 10/2020

  9. Institute Council for Business Informatics

    06/2015 – 10/2020

  10. Student Parliament, TU Berlin

    09/2016 – 10/2020

  11. Education Committee, EECS, TU Berlin

    09/2015 – 10/2020

  12. Students' union Freitagsrunde, EECS

    05/2015 – 10/2020

Scientific Event (Co-)Organization

  1. Co-Chair of PET-CON 2024.1: 12th Privacy Enhancing Techniques Convention

    03/2024

  2. Organized panel discussion at Computers, Privacy and Data Protection Conference

    05/2023

Selected Talks and Media

  1. DIVI annual meeting 2024

    Data science basics for hospital staff - what is AI and how does it work?

    Talk at annual meeting of the Deutsche Interdisziplinäre Vereinigung für Intensiv- und Notfallmedizin

    12/2024

  2. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

    Was KI im Krankenhaus leisten kann

    Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

    09/2024

  3. The Shifting Privacy Left Podcast

    Cloud-Native Privacy Engineering via DevPrivOps

    The Shifting Privacy Left Podcast

    08/2023

  4. Data Morgana

    Data Morgana

    How we protect our privacy technically

    03/2023

  5. DaSKITA talk

    Data protection today: Smart tools instead of long texts

    11/2022

  6. DaSKITA talk

    Smart data protection for today's interconnected world and transparency tools

    10/2022

  7. TU Berlin video

    Uni-Triell zur Präsident*innen-Wahl

    Moderation. TU Berlin

    11/2021

  8. Der Tagesspiegel

    Ein Wissenschaftler macht den Wahlcheck

    Der Tagesspiegel

    08/2021

  9. Digital Autonomy Hub / GI

    Technical Approaches for GDPR Transparency

    Digital Autonomy Hub / GI

    01/2021

  10. ZDF

    Corona. Folgen für Studierende

    ZDF

    04/2020

Advisory and Mentoring

  1. Advisory Board Member of the NRW Consumer Research Competence Center

    08/2022 – today

  2. Mentor at the Digital Education Hack of Hochschulforum Digitalisierung

    11/2020

Professional Memberships

  1. German Association of University Professors and Lecturers (DHV)

    01/2025 – today

  2. German Society for Medical Informatics, Biometry and Epidemiology (GMDS)

    05/2024 – today

  3. Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)

    01/2021 – today

  4. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)

    07/2023 – today

  5. German Informatics Society

    Gesellschaft für Informatik e.V.

    01/2019 – today

  6. Society of Friends of the TU Berlin e.V.

    Cash auditor, since 2023

    01/2018 – today

  7. Genshagener Kreis e.V., Berlin

    02/2023 – today

  8. Arts, Sounds & Thoughts e.V., Berlin

    Chairman

    11/2023 – today

Contact

Get in touch

Dr.-Ing. Elias Grünewald
Institute of Medical Informatics, Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin
Invalidenstraße 90, 10115 Berlin, Germany

elias.gruenewald@charite.de

Profiles