UCLA’s Yuzhe Yang Recognized as Next-Generation Informatics Leader with Prestigious AMIA Award

UCLA’s Yuzhe Yang Recognized with AMIA Award
Prof. Yuzhe Yang
February 25, 2026

Yuzhe Yang, an Assistant Professor of Computational Medicine and Computer Science at UCLA and director of the Health Intelligence Lab, has been awarded an Honorable Mention for the 2025 Edward H. Shortliffe Doctoral Dissertation Award by the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA).

Yang was recognized for his doctoral dissertation, titled Machine Learning Approaches that Extend Healthcare: Algorithms & Applications. This accolade is one of the highest honors in the field of medical informatics, designed to recognize "the critical importance of fostering the development and discovery of new informatics science" and to identify members who will become the "next generation of informatics leaders".

Innovating at the Intersection of AI and Medicine

Yang’s dissertation work at MIT, where he received his Ph.D. under the advice of Dina Katabi, laid the groundwork for his current research focus. Now at UCLA, he directs the Health Intelligence Lab, which is dedicated to advancing "scalable, multisensory, and generative AI to drive innovations in healthcare, medicine, and scientific discovery".

His research portfolio is extensive and high-impact. His lab is currently working on:

  • AI for Medicine and Science: Including the development of AI biomarkers for human health and diseases.
  • Generalist Health Models: Building foundation models and multimodal language models like "SensorLM" to interpret wearable and everyday multisensory data.
  • Trustworthy Learning Algorithms: Creating AI systems that can be reliably deployed in high-stakes clinical environments.

A Career Defined by Excellence

While the AMIA award is a significant milestone, it is the latest in a rapid succession of accolades for Yang. His work on AI-based biomarkers for Parkinson's disease was previously named one of the Ten Notable Advances in 2022 by Nature Medicine and one of the Ten Crucial Advances in Movement Disorders by The Lancet Neurology.

Yang’s career trajectory has been highlighted by his inclusion in the Forbes 30 Under 30 list for Healthcare & Science (2024). His research has been published in top-tier journals and conferences, including Nature, Nature Medicine, NeurIPS, ICML, and ICLR, and has garnered attention from major media outlets such as the Wall Street Journal, BBC, and Forbes.

Prior to his current role, his academic excellence was recognized through multiple fellowships, including the Takeda, Baidu, and MathWorks PhD Fellowships, as well as the Rising Stars in AI (Yunfan Award).

This latest recognition from AMIA underscores the clinical relevance of Yang's computational work, solidifying his status as a pivotal figure in the future of health intelligence and medical AI.

The full dissertation is available here:
https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/156620

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