Dylan Steinecke

BIOGRAPHY

Dylan Steinecke graduated cum laude from California State University San Marcos with a B.S. in Biological Sciences concentrated in Cellular & Molecular Biology with minors in Mathematics, Computer Science, and Economics. As an undergraduate, he worked tutoring math and science. He also gained research experience in the field of conservation genetics and molecular ecology at CSUSM and in a data science drug repurposing project at The Scripps Research Institute. Dylan is interested in precision and translational medical research in order to help those suffering from disease and hopes to do so during his time at UCLA and beyond.

Nathan Siu

BIOGRAPHY

Nathan Siu is a Ph.D. student in the Medical Informatics program interested in harnessing computational methods to solve problems in medicine and biology. Prior to joining UCLA, Nathan graduated cum laude from Davidson College with an honors B.S. in Bioinformatics. As an undergraduate, Nathan conducted research in a variety of fields including diagnostic device development, public health, and medical imaging.

Karthik V. Sarma

BIOGRAPHY

Karthik is an MD-PhD student at the UCLA-Caltech Medical Scientist Training Program, currently pursuing his PhD in the UCLA Medical Imaging Informatics group.

Karthik’s research focuses on the development of novel artificial intelligence techniques for medical applications. His thesis work seeks to assist radiologists and pathologists focusing on diagnosis, staging and treatment of prostate cancer by adapting modern computer vision approaches to the development of computerized clinical decision support systems (CDS). He is the recipient of an F30 fellowship from the National Institutes of Health and several other awards and grants. In addition to his work in prostate CDS, Karthik’s work also includes the evaluation of social media as a predictive tool for health status, the use of artificial intelligence for stroke prognosis estimation, and the development of patient portals for effectively sharing understandable medical information.

Karthik also serves as a member of the Board of Trustees of the American Medical Association, having been elected in 2016 and re-elected in 2017. Prior to joining the AMA-BOT, he was a member of the AMA House of Delegates for four years as part of the California delegation and served on the AMA Council on Medical Service. He also led the effort to create the AMA Medical Student Section Committee on Health Information Technology and served as its first chair. Currently he is the vice chair of the California Medical Association (CMA) Subcommittee on Health Information Technology, having previously served on the CMA Board of Trustees in 2014.

A native of Chicago, Karthik is an alumnus of the California Institute of Technology, where he received the degree of Bachelor of Science with honors in computer science.

Al Rahrooh

BIOGRAPHY

Al Rahrooh is a Ph.D. student in the Medical Informatics Program at UCLA interested in the novel applications of artificial intelligence and computational modeling to create clinically useful diagnostic tools that personalize therapy. Prior to joining UCLA, Al graduated summa cum laude from the University of Central Florida with a B.S in Biomedicine and minor in Political Science. During his undergraduate education Al conducted research on the reduction and extraction of information from EEG motion artifact data through machine learning algorithms and statistical classification to predict walking speed. Al currently works as the Director of Innovation for LeNgineer, an engineering services and R&D company contracted by NASA, to develop and automate the next generation of human space flight systems along with the exploration of biotechnology ventures.

Jennifer Polson

BIOGRAPHY

Jennifer is a Ph.D. student in the Medical Imaging & Informatics Group under the mentorship of Dr. Corey Arnold. Her research focuses on applying deep learning techniques to medical images and using interpretability methods to gain insight into model behavior. Previously at UCLA, Jennifer received her BS in Biochemistry and an MS in Physiology, with her thesis focusing on statistical analysis of protein turnover in mouse models under cardiovascular stress.

Mara Pleasure

BIOGRAPHY

Mara is a first-year Ph.D. student in the Medical Informatics program. She graduated with a double major in Human Biology and Media Arts + Practice from the University of Southern California in 2019. Mara is interested in precision health and the integration of multiple types of biological data – such as imaging, EHR, genomic data, and sensor data – to better understand complex diseases. She is also interested in incorporating digital health technologies and wearables into her research.

Saarang Panchavati

BIOGRAPHY

Saarang is a Ph.D. student in the Medical Informatics program at UCLA and is interested in developing new deep learning methods for various applications in medicine. He graduated from UC Berkeley (go bears!) with a double major in Bioengineering and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. At Berkeley, Saarang was involved with the Neurotech@Berkeley club and conducted research with micro-neural interfaces. He also interned at a Bay-Area-based startup, where he did research in clinical informatics, and developed algorithms to predict various indications in-hospital.

Carlos Olivares

BIOGRAPHY

Carlos is a PhD student in the Medical Imaging & Informatics Group at UCLA. He has broad interests in applying machine learning and data science to medicine, but is particularly interested in histopathological image analysis with deep learning, and methodologies for effectively incorporating data driven technology into clinical practice. Before joining UCLA MII, Carlos received a BA in mathematics at the University of Chicago.

Patrick Liu

BIOGRAPHY

Patty Liu (he/his) is a PhD candidate in the UCLA Medical Informatics Program and MD student at the David Geffen School of Medicine. He’s interested in the intersection of population health informatics, health equity, and systems of care. Prior to UCLA, he completed a combined MPH and research fellowship at the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, and his undergraduate in Neuroscience and Economics at Pomona College.

Elizabeth Hutchins

BIOGRAPHY

I grew up in Santa Barbara, CA but then lived in New York City for 10 years for undergrad and medical school at Columbia University. I returned to California in 2016 for residency in internal medicine at Harbor-UCLA. I am now in cardiology fellowship at UCLA in the STAR program where I plan to complete a Ph.D in the medical informatics. I am very excited to join this group and look forward to our collaborative efforts in improving medical imaging!