Research

We develop a computational model that explains how people make causal judgments in physical scenes by mentally simulating counterfactual outcomes and comparing those to what actually happened.

In order to be able to design synthetic organs that function autonomously, we will need to engineer artificial tissue homeostasis. To control the size of these artificial tissues, two major mechanisms will have to be engineered.

We develop image analysis algorithms for whole-heart cardiac MRI in patients with severe congenital heart disease.

Integrating multi-modal clinical data and using recurrent and convolution neural networks to predict when patients will need important interventions.

We develop novel algorithms for neuroimage segmentation, registration, and joint modeling of brain structure with clinical and genetic data.

We use computational models of biological pathways in disease to estimate the range of possible responses to various hypothetical drugs, given patient variability and limited pathway-relevant data.

Existing methods for cloning and recombination of DNA enable construction of arbitrary sequences. However, the sequential nature of these techniques makes them time-consuming and expensive. Furthermore, while the transformation of an existing plasmid into a host strain can be reliable when a selection marker is used, there are many current limitations: the number of different plasmids that can be co-transformed is limited by the choice of markers and compatible origins of replication; plasmids are less stable than chromosomal DNA and are difficult to maintain indefinitely without mutation; and cistronic interactions cannot be designed since each new nucleotide sequence added is on an unconnected DNA molecule. To overcome these limitations, we are designing reconfigurable chromosomes consisting of both fixed and variable regions. While the fixed region is carefully optimized and tuned ahead of time, the variable region can be modified in the field, at the point-of-use, leading to rapid and on-demand realization of novel biocircuits with many different phenotypes.

Developing state-of-the-art tools that process 3D surfaces and volumes

Data often has geometric structure which can enable better inference; this project aims to scale up geometry-aware techniques for use in machine learning settings with lots of data, so that this structure may be utilized in practice.

We aim to study the causes and transmission modes of infectious diseases among members of a community in the presence of hidden, asymptomatic spreaders of the pathogen.

Our goal is to develop better metagenomic binning by origin species of fragments of sequenced environmental DNA.

We develop algorithms for fetal MRI interpretation, to enable noninvasive fetal monitoring from MRI.

We develop, parameterize, and validate a model for tumor growth inhibition using in vivo mouse data and study the effects of modeling uncertainty and inter-individual variability on drug candidate efficacy predictions.

Transitioning machine learning models across electronic health record (EHR) versions can be improved by mapping different EHR encodings to a common vocabulary.

We develop machine learning algorithms to automatically and quantitatively assess the severity of pulmonary edema from chest x-ray images.

We develop algorithms, systems and software architectures for automating reconstruction of accurate representations of neural tissue structures, such as nanometer-scale neurons' morphology and synaptic connections in the mammalian cortex.

The Robot Compiler allows non-engineering users to rapidly fabricate customized robots, facilitating the proliferation of robots in everyday life. It thereby marks an important step towards the realization of personal robots that have captured imaginations for decades.

Using adversarial signals and a cycle-consistency based regularization, we can supplement paired regression tasks with unpaired data to improve regression performance.

This project uses computational biology and chemistry tools to design a pharmaceutical to combat the Zika Virus.

We aim to develop a context-aware data-driven functional genomics framework that can characterize tissue-specific gene representations, provide context-aware genotype to phenotype mapping, and enable network-based exploration of disease genetics.

Uhura is an autonomous system that collaborates with humans in planning and executing complex tasks, especially under over-subscribed and risky situations.

Using medical knowledge to improve learned representations of patient health trajectories.

We enable independent navigation for visually impaired users through a wearable feedback system using time-of-light sensors or depth cameras.

Our goal is to build a system that predicts where people are looking in images. Given an image and the location of a head, our approach follows the gaze of the person and identifies the object being looked at.