What is your Research Focus?
My research asks whether AI and natural language processing techniques can make sense of scientific output and help people make better health-related decisions. In healthcare, people are faced constantly with decisions: whether to start a new medication, whether to opt for treatment A over treatment B, etc. Given the complex nature of each individual’s health circumstance and the rapid advancement of medical science, it is difficult to find all relevant information.
My work seeks to develop models and systems that can help people access the latest research findings in order to make more informed decisions. For example, some of my work focuses on developing dedicated search interfaces for underserved health topics (like dietary supplement safety), improving clinical outcome prediction by integrating the latest research output, or synthesizing information across different research studies to provide an estimate of scientific consensus for a treatment or medication. I ask questions such as how do we develop machine learning models that can accomplish these tasks and how do we integrate model outputs into user decision-making workflows (i.e., how and when to present model outputs, what type of information to provide, and how to measure effectiveness). My work on supplement interaction detection, COVID-19 datasets, document understanding, and more can be accessed in various public demos and datasets.
What opportunities at the UW excite you?
Immense potential for interdisciplinary collaboration. Our medical center and regional hospitals are world class, and I am excited to work with clinical collaborators at UWMC and Harborview toward improving access to information that can help providers and patients make better healthcare decisions. The iSchool is also a unique, highly interdisciplinary place, where I look forward to learning and drawing upon new and new-to-me ideas from my colleagues.