The Team at the Alberta Strategy for Patient-Oriented Research SUPPORT Unit is deeply saddened by the passing of our team member and friend, Dr. Hude Quan.

Hude was a remarkable scholar, leader, mentor, and colleague, and a foundational force within AbSPORU as Co-Lead of our Data & Research Services Team since 2021.

His commitment to improving health data in medical education and research was the thread that bound his career. Hude was a leader in the development of health data tools and standards used nationally and around the world to improve patient care, guide health policy and advance medicine. His accomplishments are both numerous and far-reaching, regularly listed among the world’s most highly cited researchers nationally and internationally. 

Hude was an epidemiologist and professor in the University of Calgary Department of Community Health Sciences, a member of the Libin Cardiovascular Institute at the CSM, and the founding director of the CSM’s Centre for Health Informatics (CHI). He was a highly dedicated teacher and mentor and his legacy includes supporting more than 35 master’s, PhD and postdoctoral trainees from around the world. He also established international training and exchange programs that have brought students from China, France, Spain, Korea and other countries to Calgary, and sent local students to intern at the WHO headquarters in Geneva. 

In 2025, we shared with pride Hude’s Lifetime Achievement Award, bestowed upon him by the University of Calgary. The award honours the breadth and significance of his contributions—an acknowledgment that reflects the impact of his work and the respect he earned across the global research community. This same community will surely feel this significant loss.

Hude’s humility, kindness, intellect, and dedication to improving health through better data will continue to shape AbSPORU in perpetuity. He will be deeply, deeply missed.

You may wish to revisit Hude’s presentation from AbSPORU’s 10th Anniversary Collaborative Forum, where he openly shares his journey through a four-and-a-half-year battle with cholangiocarcinoma, a rare and aggressive bile duct cancer: “Data, Information, and Personalized Actions: Journey for Wellbeing”.

Hude passed away at the age of 63, peacefully at home surrounded by family. We are holding Hude’s family, friends, colleagues, and students in our thoughts during this difficult time.

Read more in the University of Calgary’s In Memoriam