Research on AI for health has immense potential to transform healthcare. We are developing AI technologies that can improve disease diagnosis, detect early signs of illness, help understand the relationships among biology, behavior, and health, and recommend personalized treatment plans. These advancements would enhance accuracy, explainability, and safety of healthcare, and enable the discovery of new diagnostic and treatment methods. Moreover, AI could optimize administrative tasks, streamline hospital workflows, and enhance patient care by minimizing errors and improving efficiency. Consequently, integrating AI into healthcare systems can save lives, reduce expenses, and elevate the overall quality of healthcare, profoundly benefitting society.

Imaging for health is indispensable to providing precise, efficient, and compassionate patient care, ultimately enhancing overall health outcomes and quality of life. From classical imaging modalities such as optical and medical imaging to emerging ones like photoacoustics, we are developing next-generation devices and machine learning algorithms to push the boundaries of accuracy, form factor, and efficiency of medical imaging technologies. These new technologies empower physicians to better understand the human body, measure and treat diseases, and provide therapy monitoring enabling timely and personalized treatment plans.

Understanding how bias affects all aspects of healthcare—from sensors to algorithms to the overall healthcare ecosystem—and how such systems can be better engineered to mitigate bias and improve healthcare access, is critical for improving health and wellbeing for all. We are engineering personalized healthcare solutions that are robust, affordable, and take into account the diversity of each individual’s lived experience. We are designing novel algorithms, data collection methods, and hardware that are optimized to the unique needs and backgrounds of each patient. Health equity is a mindset that we apply to all aspects of our work to promote equitable access to effective and quality healthcare.

Robotic technologies have transformed how healthcare is provided. We are developing new methods for robotic-assisted surgeries that offer greater precision and shorter recovery times to robots aiding in repetitive tasks like medication delivery, rehabilitation, and patient monitoring, these advancements have demonstrated their potential to significantly improve healthcare outcomes. We are developing robotic systems to address healthcare systems challenges, such as the aging population and the shortage of healthcare professionals, by enhancing training efficacy, filling critical gaps, improving accessibility, and increasing the overall efficiency and personalization of healthcare delivery. 

Advanced biosensors and their integration into point-of-care handheld, wearable, and implantable digital devices are revolutionizing health and fitness, by offering real-time monitoring and data-driven insights into an individual's physiological and biochemical state. We are developing technologies that offer unprecedented health insights with comfortable, unobtrusive, and accessible devices. We are thus investigating fundamental technologies including flexible and long-term bio/chemical/electrical sensors, and miniaturized, low-power (and self-powered) electronics for collecting, processing, and transmitting sensor data. We are further integrating these novel technologies into practical systems to conduct clinically relevant evaluations and translational studies.