Bio

I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Quantitative and Systems Health Sciences at Dell Medical School, The University of Texas at Austin, where I direct the LEAF-AI Lab (Learning Ecosystem for Age-Friendly Care). My research develops human-centered, trustworthy AI solutions through team-science approaches to accelerate the use of real-world Electronic Health Record (EHR) data for improving age-friendly care, spanning three interconnected pillars: modeling real-world data into clinical knowledge, translating validated models into deployable multi-site solutions, and scaling the shared infrastructure that lets institutions learn from each other's data. I am also affiliated with the Network for Investigation of Delirium: Unifying Scientists and Mayo Clinic, Division of Epidemiology, with collaborative research experience spanning aging, cancer, and musculoskeletal diseases and procedures. Previously, I was an Assistant Professor and Associate Director of Team Science at the Center for Translational AI Excellence and Applications in Medicine (TEAM-AI), McWilliams School of Biomedical Informatics, UTHealth Houston, and a Sr. Data Science Analyst at the Department of AI and Informatics, Mayo Clinic. I obtained my Ph.D. at the University of Minnesota, M.H.I. at the University of Michigan, and B.B.A. at the University of Iowa.

Recent News

Jul 6 2026: I have joined the Department of Quantitative and Systems Health Sciences, Dell Medical School, The University of Texas at Austin, as Assistant Professor.

Sep 29 2025: Our study Advancing Delirium Detection through the Open Health Natural Language Processing Consortium and ENACT Network was accepted by The Journals of Gerontology: Series A and selected as Editor’s Choice.

Sep 18 2025: Excited to be part of the ReCARDO team—a $27.2 million initiative funded by the National Institute on Aging (NIA) to build a national Alzheimer’s disease Common Data Elements (CDE) network using real-world data. I will serve as Co-Investigator and lead the AI-based computational phenotyping module within this multi-institutional collaboration.

Aug 29 2025: Honored to receive an NIH K01 Mentored Research Scientist Development Award to advance computational phenotyping of cancer-related cognitive impairment in older adults using real-world EHR data.

Jul 1 2025: Grateful to receive a Center for Clinical and Translational Science (CCTS) Pilot Grant for Translating Natural Language Processing-Derived Real-World Data to Support Clinical Research

Jan 01 2025: I began serving as Vice Chair of the NLP Working Group at the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA), supporting initiatives in natural language processing research and community engagement.

Sep 13 2024: We received two pilot awards from the Artificial Intelligence and Technology Collaboratories (AITC) for Aging Research program and UTHealth Insitution of Aging to study acute heart failure exacerbation and adverse drug events among Older Adults.

Aug 9 2024: Our study A Generalist Vision-Language Foundation Model for Diverse Biomedical Tasks has been accepted by Nature Medicine.

June 20 2024: Our study error taxonomy was featured by JAMIA and selected as AHRQ collection.

Mar 18 2024: Honored to receive NIDUS II LOI Award to improve the differential detection between delirium and dementia

Mar 17 2024: Honored to receive AMIA IS 24 SPC Award.

Jul 1 2023: Very excited to join UTHealth McWilliams School of Biomedical Informatics as a faculty member.

Mar 18 2023: Our CTS study is featured by the American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics and Clinical and Translational Science, as well as Mayo Clinic's Research Magazine.