Assistant Professor (Clinical), Division of Neonatology
Associate Medical Director, Intermountain Medical Center NICU
Clinical Care
Dr. Daniel York is a board-certified neonatologist and Assistant Professor of Neonatology and Pediatrics at the University of Utah. He provides expert clinical care in both level III and level IV NICUs across the Salt Lake City region, including Primary Children’s Hospital, the University of Utah NICU and Intermountain Medical Center, where he serves as Associate Medical Director. His clinical focus includes the management of neonates with complex surgical conditions, cardiac conditions, hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy, and extreme prematurity. Dr. York is actively involved in quality improvement initiatives, including the implementation of Less Invasive Surfactant Administration (LISA) protocols and multidisciplinary efforts to optimize respiratory care for extremely low birth weight infants.
Research and Innovation
Dr. York’s research bridges clinical neonatology and artificial intelligence, with a focus on developing scalable, bedside-compatible tools for neonatal diagnostics and behavioral phenotyping. He leads the Neonatal AI Initiative at the University of Utah, fostering interdisciplinary collaborations to integrate AI into neonatal and pediatric research.
His work includes:
- Peripheral Microvascular Imaging: Dr. York developed an automated deep learning pipeline to analyze peripheral microvascular density (PMVD) in preterm infants, a promising biomarker for retinopathy of prematurity (ROP). This work has received national recognition and funding from the Gerber Foundation.
- Spinal Ultrasound Quantification: He is the site PI for a multi-institutional study using machine learning to correlate cerebrospinal fluid volume with intraventricular hemorrhage severity.
- Composite Retinopathy of Prematurity (ROP) Risk Modeling: He co-developed a novel risk stratification model combining ROP and bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) predictors to enhance early identification of high-risk infants.
- Neonatal Behavioral Phenotyping: Through the Pebble AI initiative, Dr. York is developing automated movement tracking tools to detect early neurologic abnormalities in neonates.
Dr. York actively mentors fellows and trainees in translational research and AI applications in neonatology. His work has been presented at national conferences including the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) and the Society for Critical Care Medicine (SCCM), and published in leading journals such as The Journal of Pediatrics and The Journal of Ultrasound in Medicine.