Xiang “Anthony” Chen, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering, has received a National Science Foundation CAREER award, the agency’s highest honor for faculty members in the early stages of their teaching and research careers. The award includes a five-year, $548,000 grant to support Chen’s research enabling physicians to analyze medical images, such as X-ray and tissue scans, using artificial intelligence.
Today’s AI-powered programs are often essentially a “black box” without readily understood reasoning behind AI analysis. This leads to reluctance for doctors to incorporate such findings into their diagnoses.
Chen plans to develop an interface that will help AI programs explain how they came up with their findings, and thereby allow doctors much more control in how they interact with an AI-powered technology. For example, doctors could adjust the AI to incorporate details of a specific patient and add new medical information as it becomes available.
In collaboration with physicians from the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Chen seeks to incorporate their recommendations and preferences in order to design an interface that will meet the needs of medical professionals.
Chen leads UCLA HCI Research, which specializes in human-computer interaction with an emphasis on AI solutions. This includes designing intelligent user interfaces, new sensing and interaction techniques, and computational platforms that extend beyond a screen and keyboard.