Taylor Bobrow, Jie Gao, and Danielle Ripsman comprise the latest cohort selected for the Malone Postdoctoral Fellows Program, which provides postdoctoral researchers with resources to support clinically-facing research, faculty mentorship and collaboration, and the opportunity to play a role in the Malone Center’s research mission.
Taylor Bobrow completed his PhD in biomedical engineering at Johns Hopkins this past year, where he focused on developing novel optical hardware and computer vision algorithms to improve the efficacy of screening colonoscopy procedures.
“Taylor is passionate about making an impact in health care through entrepreneurship,” says Nicholas Durr, an associate professor of biomedical engineering and Malone affiliate whose lab Bobrow will be working in. “We’re excited by his drive to leverage the cross-disciplinary expertise and resources at the Malone Center to achieve this goal.”
Bobrow and Durr will be joined by John C. Malone Associate Professor of Computer Science Mathias Unberath and James “Jim” Fackler, a professor of anesthesiology and critical care medicine affiliated with the Malone Center, in developing technical solutions for enabling continuous, non-invasive urinalysis in critical care to prevent catheter-associated urinary tract infections.
“I am eager to collaborate with members of the center on technologies that will enhance health care,” Bobrow says.
Jie Gao’s research focuses on human-AI collaboration and AI for social science. Her work primarily investigates various modes of human-large language model collaboration and interaction, with a specific focus on developing systems to facilitate humans and LLMs working together to perform qualitative data analysis—that is, turning unstructured data into concepts with the help of LLMs.
“Jie’s work on understanding how people interact with large language models is critical to unlocking the full potential of AI across a range of domains. What ultimately matters is not the quality of the AI, but the success of the overall human-AI interaction,” says John C. Malone Professor of Computer Science Mark Dredze, one of Gao’s mentors at the Malone Center.
“We are excited to work with Jie to explore and understand novel human-AI interaction paradigms with generative AI,” adds Ziang Xiao, an assistant professor of computer science and another of Gao’s mentors.
Also joined by John C. Malone Assistant Professor of Computer Science Chien-Ming Huang, Gao will work with her mentors to build interactive systems for health care experts, with a focus on contextualized generative AI model evaluation.
“My ultimate goal is to become a world-class researcher,” says Gao. “The Malone Center offers an ideal environment for advancing my skills through impactful research.”
For the better part of the last decade, Danielle Ripsman has been immersed in health care optimization research problems; her research projects have ranged from scheduling problems to radiation therapy treatment planning and have employed a range of optimization tools.
“We’re excited for the expertise and the passion that Danielle will bring in,” says Ripsman’s co-advisor Kimia Ghobadi, the John C. Malone Assistant Professor of Civil and Systems Engineering. “Her experience in health care, analytics, and optimization methods, enables a well-rounded approach to the complex health care problems we are tackling.”
Joined by Todd McNutt, an associate professor in radiation oncology and a Malone affiliate, Ripsman and Ghobadi will develop and advance inverse optimization techniques in health care—in other words, using historical decision data to discover the underlying decision-making mechanisms necessary to replicate the process and adapt it to different populations and settings.
“I am passionate about improving the quality of our health care systems and finding new, practical ways to improve existing treatment methods,” Ripsman says.
Bobrow, Gao, and Ripsman will begin their fellowships over the course of the next calendar year. To learn more about the Malone Postdoctoral Fellows Program, click here.
Image Caption: Taylor Bobrow, Jie Gao, and Danielle Ripsman