As the largest and most easily visualized immune organ, skin has a central role in diagnosis and monitoring of many systemic diseases. Experts across dermatology and other specialties have invested significant effort to convert clinical skin findings into metrics of disease severity, progression, and treatment response. Efficiency, accessibility, practical implementation, and reproducibility of these tools is often a fundamental bottleneck to patient care and validation of novel therapies. At the same time, artificial intelligence (AI) and handheld technologies are addressing similar issues in diverse fields of medicine. Many clinical breakthroughs would be possible simply by properly harnessing existing technology, and even greater progress is possible with proper clinical engagement in the development stage. The Vanderbilt Dermatology Translational Research Clinic (VDTRC.org), founded and directed by physician-scientist Eric Tkaczyk, works to address these gap with the development and application of technology for rigorous, clinically meaningful assessment of the skin, both for cutaneous as well as systemic diseases.