Ritambhara Singh Receives An NSF CAREER Award For Using Machine Learning To Integrate Health Data
- Posted by Jesse Polhemus
- on July 14, 2025
“Understanding and improving human health is a complex challenge,” says Brown CS faculty member Ritambhara Singh, “because it involves multiple types of information, including medical records, brain scans, and genetic data. Each type of information provides a distinct piece of the puzzle. However, these pieces don’t always fit together easily because they come in different forms and quantities. These differences make it challenging for doctors and researchers to obtain a comprehensive understanding of a person’s health and determine the most effective treatment.”
In response, Ritambhara aims to develop new computational methods that can combine all these types of health information to better predict diseases and design effective treatments tailored to each individual, and she’s just received a National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award to help pursue them. CAREER Awards are given in support of outstanding junior faculty teacher-scholars who excel at research, education, and integration of the two within the context of an organizational mission.
This project addresses two major challenges for developing integrative machine learning for health applications: effectively modeling the complex relationships within and between different data types and addressing the sample size imbalances commonly found in real-world datasets.
“By improving how we use these diverse health data,” Ritambhara says, “this research could lead to earlier diagnosis, more personalized care, and ultimately better health outcomes for patients. Additionally, the project will involve students in this work to teach them how to use these advanced tools, helping to build a future workforce capable of creating the technology that tackles complex health challenges.”
Ritambhara joins numerous previous Brown CS winners of the award, including (most recently) Peihan Miao, Vasileios Kemerlis, Srinath Sridhar, Malte Schwarzkopf, and Daniel Ritchie.
For more information, click the link that follows to contact Brown CS Communications Manager Jesse C. Polhemus.
