Invited Academic Seminar Series – Ehsan Hoque- Embedding human values in digital medicine (Hybrid Delivery)

Speaker

Ehsan Hoque

Associate Professor
Computer Science
University of Rochester

Abstract

Many argue that making interoperability, federal incentives, barcoding, and deep learning is the core of revolutionizing healthcare information technology. It is. But it is also about developing technologies that align with our values and integrate effortlessly with our lifestyles and healthcare workflow while improving access and equity.

In this talk, I will highlight the following projects and their design principles, technical contributions, and a roadmap to integrating them within the existing healthcare workflow.

1)      How to develop an automated screening and tracking of Parkinson’s disease—the fastest-growing neurological disability —through a series of tasks on a webcam anytime, anywhere?

2)      How can AI assist doctors in improving empathy and listening skills as they help terminally ill patients make critical decisions?

3)      How can virtual avatars with standardized, repeatable, and objective feedback improve the social skills of individuals who struggle with socio-emotional communication, such as those with Autism?

Along with technical contributions, I will reflect on the journey of how a trained computer scientist like myself could get into healthcare research driven by personal circumstances and enabled by excellent collaborators.

Bio: Ehsan Hoque is an associate professor of computer science at the University of Rochester, where he co-leads the Rochester Human-Computer Interaction (ROC HCI) Group. From 2018-2019, he was also the Interim Director of the Goergen Institute for Data Science. Ehsan earned his Ph.D. from MIT in 2013, where the MIT Museum highlighted his dissertation—the development of an intelligent agent to improve human ability — as one of MIT’s most unconventional inventions. Building on the work/patent, Microsoft released “Speaker Coach” available in PowerPoint. Ehsan is best known for introducing and extensively validating the idea of using AI to train and enhance elements of basic human ability.

Ehsan and his students’ work has been recognized by NSF CAREER Award, MIT TR35, Young Investigator Award by the US Army Research Office (ARO). In 2017, Science News named him one of the 10 scientists to watch, and in 2020, the National Academy of Medicine recognized him as one of the emerging leaders in health and medicine. Ehsan is blessed to be the primary caregiver of his younger brother, 22, who is nonverbal and diagnosed with Autism and down syndrome.

Host

Lueder Kahrs