March 30, 2026 — When he’s not playing as his favorite Pokémon character, Totodile, Shreyas Kalikar, M.S., is creating tailored technological solutions to help clinicians, staff and patients.

Kalikar joined the University of Florida College of Medicine’s Quality and Patient Safety initiative, or QPSi, team in 2024 as a data analyst, where his hands-on skills were quickly put to use to adapt large language models to efficiently analyze and organize information health teams collect. He was recently recognized as a 2026 Division 5 UF Superior Accomplishment Award winner after being nominated by his peers for going beyond the specifications of his role and fostering a positive work environment.

“His sense of humor and collegial spirit make him a joy to work with and help create a welcoming and inclusive environment for all,” said Ashley Spink, M.S., the director of operations and strategy at QPSi.

Only a few weeks after joining QPSi, Kalikar was hard at work mentoring two interns and helping to develop large language models to analyze patient comments. The project helped streamline the process of identifying positive and critical comments, saving the staff time and allowing them to focus on interventions that directly improve patient care.

Kalikar was inspired to pursue a career in the health care field after taking a digital health course with Abdelsalam Helal, Ph.D., an emeritus professor in the Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering, as a part of his computer science master’s program at UF.

“That class gave me a lot of insight on what I could do differently, how I can think differently,” Kalikar said.

Although he didn’t have any previous experience in health care, Kalikar took on the challenge of learning medical terms and processing raw medical data.

Now he’s working on a project using a medical-grade large language model to condense patient notes into critical information for health providers to use for intervention measures. What normally takes over an hour to read through can now be read in minutes, getting patients the care they need faster.

Another of his current projects focuses on identifying readmitted patients, with the goal of determining the reasons for readmission and assisting health care teams in taking the steps to help ensure a full recovery for patients and prevent them from needing to be readmitted.

Kalikar enjoys the iterative and collaborative process of his role. He gets to create tailored solutions for clinicians to solve the novel problems they face, while learning more about artificial intelligence.

“It’s important to be able to use the latest technology you have to cut even a few minutes off a clinician’s busy day,” he said.

When he was awarded his Superior Accomplishment Award in the Rookie of the Year category, he read the subject line of the email and didn’t think twice; he was excited for those who won the award but didn’t realize he was listed among the honorees until one of the team’s interns came to congratulate him.

“I have a wonderful team that has loads of experience and who I learn with every day,” he said. “I think that’s why I’m here. It just motivates me to do even better.”