Director of GenAI Health lab
Helen Chen, Professor of Practice; Director Professional Practice Centre In Health Systems
Office: Toby Jenkins Building (TJB) 2272
Phone: 519-888-4567, ext. 42131
Email: helen.chen@uwaterloo.ca
Alumini
Bing Hu
- Research impact: Author of 25+ publications spanning generative AI for drug discovery, synthetic data, and LLM-based literature screening, including work in Scientific Reports and at ICML, ICLR, and NeurIPS workshops.
- Applied AI in health: Built methods at the Public Health Agency of Canada that generated 50+ million synthetic COVID-19 records and automated systematic reviews with partners like WHO and CERN.
- Leadership and teaching: Co-founded Wat.AI (1,000+ members), co-chairs Health Canada’s 2026 Science Forum plenary on LLMs, and instructs a University of Waterloo GenAI course.
PhD Students
Beth Horodyski
Research interests:
- Disruptive Innovation Evaluation in Health Technology
- GenAI and Quantum systems in support of human health and performance
Eric Kun Huh
Research interests:
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Health Informatics and Digital Health
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Computer Science and Healthcare Technology
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Clinical Decision Support and Healthcare Innovation
Nauman Shakeel
Research Interests:
- Applications of generative AI in public health
Tianyi (Tina) Teng
Research interests:
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Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare
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Machine Learning for Health Applications
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Data-Driven Clinical Decision-Making
Ying Zhu
Research Interests:
- Healthcare finances and digital transformation
- Role of governance in health data visualization
- AI-ready data repositories
Yixin Li
Research Interests:
- Synthetic data
- Machine learning for privacy
Ziting Shen
Research interests:
- Agentic Systems design in Public Health
- Applications of AI/ML in healthcare
- Algorithmic fairness
Master's Students
Christopher Lo
Research Interests:
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LLM-based analysis of online health discourse on Reddit, including vaccine hesitancy and public sentiment
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Digital health solutions to improve patient engagement and chronic disease management
Jacie Jermier
Research Interests:
- Advancing discovery through computational methods
- Whole-body metabolism models, with a particular emphasis on liver function and its role in metabolic processes
Jenna Yong
Research Interests:
- Synthetic data generation
- Synthetic Data Privacy & Fidelity
Jonathan Young-Man Lee
Research Interests:
- Agentic LLM pipelines for real-time public-health surveillance of social media (Reddit, YouTube, X), with a focus on vaccine misinformation and health discourse.
- Evidence-grounded claim verification and behavioural coding of online health content, developed with public health units to inform communication strategy.
- Evaluation and human validation of GenAI and agentic systems for reliable, interpretable use in public health and clinical settings, including conversational AI for Parkinson's disease. thats my updated research interests
Ping Yen
Research interests:
- Time-series data analysis
- Synthetic data generation
- Synthetic Data Privacy & Fidelity
Raushan Baisalova
Research Interests:
- AI in Healthcare
- Generative AI
Salman Basha Shaik
Research Interests:
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Generative AI and Synthetic Data
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Evaluation of Generative AI Systems
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Health Informatics
Undergraduate Students
Edson Kenzo Takei
Research Interests:
- AI in Healthcare
Genevieve Lee
Research Interest:
- Predictive abilities of anonymous online chat forums to study health behaviours
- Previously inaccessible minoritized group
Collaborators
Batyr Arystanbekov
Research interests:
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Language/domain adaptation and post-training of LLMs
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Multimodal generative AI
Kathleen Lavoie
Research interests:
- Organization transformation programs
- Health Care Administration System Design (HCIS)
- Program Implementation: Programs for vulnerable population groups
Mikayla Neeb
Research Interests
- Responsible use of LLMs, particularly in qualitative research
- Use of Reddit data for public sentiment analysis
- Long-term management of chronic pain
- Food safety
Onur Kilinc
Research Interests:
- Large scale scheduling
- Intersection of data, optimization and decision making within healthcare information technologies
- Agentic AI and optimization for real world challenges
Saravana Rajan
Research interests:
- AI-Driven operational decision support systems
- AI-Native data architecture for healthcare systems
- Agentic AI systems for healthcare workflows and operations