Chemical and Biological Engineering Spring 2023 Seminar: Ishanu Chattopadhyay

The Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering will host Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of Chicago, Ishanu Chattopadhyay for a seminar titled, "The Emerging Crystal Ball: AI in Preemptive Medicine" on Wednesday, March 29, 2023 in Room 131 of Perlstein Hall from 3:15–4:30 p.m.

Abstract

Rapid progress notwithstanding, AI and its role in decision making has not reached its full potential. Often the issue is not enough data, not enough data of the right kind, not enough clarity on the implications of decisions guided by AI, biased data that leads to flawed decisions, and uncertainties—exacerbated by the high sample complexity (data hunger) of the existing algorithms, and subtle hidden foundational assumptions in core frameworks that limit our predictive reach. These issues are particularly important in biomedicine, especially in the context of screening and diagnosis of complex diseases. In this seminar, we discuss these key hurdles, and present important advances made in the Chattopadhyay lab (the ZeD lab) with respect to universal screening tools for diverse disorders ranging from autism to dementia to pulmonary fibrosis where AI is beginning to identify new underutilized diagnostic modalities, going beyond known risk factors.

Biography

Ishanu Chattopadhyay, assistant professor of medicine at the University of Chicago, is an expert in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and the computational aspects of data science. Leading the laboratory for Zero Knowledge Discovery (zed.uchicago.edu), Chattopadhyay is interested in unraveling etiologies of complex diseases, and understanding rare event dynamics in natural and human systems. His research has been funded by the United States Department of Defense, the National Institute for Health, the  Alzheimer’s Association, and the Neubauer Collegium for Culture and Society. His work has been published in top peer-reviewed journals including, the Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences (PNAS), Nature Medicine, Nature Human Behavior, the Journal of the American Heart Association (JAHA),  and journals of the American Medical Association (JAMA). Chattopadhyay won the prestigious Young Faculty Award from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in 2020 for his work on formal methods to study cognitive dissonance and opinion dynamics. Visit Chattopadhyay’s list of publications.