Michael interviews Julie Johnson, Executive Director of the Center for Research Informatics at the University of Chicago, about synthetic data in healthcare. Julie shares her unconventional career path, which included studying nursing at Georgetown and conducting video game research to improve surgical skills. They discuss the definition, creation, and potential of synthetic data in accelerating research and improving efficiencies, while addressing challenges such as trust and privacy concerns. Julie emphasizes the importance of validating findings with real-world data and explores the future of synthetic data in reshaping medical research and decision-making.