CausAI Lab

Linying Zhang is an Assistant Professor of Biostatistics at the Institute for Informatics, Data Science and Biostatistics at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis where she leads the CausAI Lab to integrate causality with artificial intelligence (AI) to achieve reliable real-world evidence (RWE) generation in clinical research and equitable clinical AI for all.

Lab mission

AI has the potential to revolutionize healthcare if developed and deployed thoughtfully. In healthcare, AI models are frequently trained on real-world data (RWD) to generate real-world evidence (RWE) or assist clinical decision-making. However, RWD are intricate, imperfect, and reflects existing health disparities. To leverage AI effectively, it’s vital to develop methodologies that address and correct the biases inherent in RWD. Our lab is committed to integrating the disciplines of causality and artificial intelligence to generate reliable real-world evidence and to create equitable clinical AI models that serve all patient groups.

Join us

Post-doc Fellows We are looking for one postdoctoral fellow to work on causal AI for health care.

PhD Students We are looking for 1-2 PhD students starting Fall 2024. Please apply directly to the Biomedical Informatics and Data Science (BIDS) PhD program at Washington University School of Medicine. In your PhD application, please explicitly mention your interest in working with Professor Linying Zhang. Existing BIDS and Computational & Systems Biology (CSB) PhD students interested in rotating through the lab should email Dr. Zhang directly.

Undergraduates or Master’s Students Undergraduates and Master’s students looking for research opportunities are encouraged to apply through the BIDS@I2 Summer Research Internship. We are looking for students who have taken at least one machine learning course and received a good grade. For masters students, we typically expect students to have taken a graduate-level machine learning course and a graduate-level probability or statistical inference course, or have had significant related research experience. WashU students interested in research assistantship should email Dr. Zhang directly.