Research Team

Throughout my career, I have dedicated myself to integrating service, research, and teaching to achieve my mission of becoming an influential academic. I actively incorporate my research into my teaching to enhance the educational experience and foster a deeper understanding of the subject matter. To cultivate a welcoming and synergistic research environment in health informatics at FSU, I founded the eHealth Lab, where I invested significant time and effort as its director. Through the eHealth Lab, I organize regular meetings with students from the iSchool and other departments at FSU, facilitating interdisciplinary discussions and collaborative research on health and biomedical informatics. My mentoring philosophy is anchored in the belief that my students’ achievements are a direct reflection of our collective efforts and dedication. Notably, my PhD student mentees are not only from the iSchool but also from other departments at FSU, including Statistics, Computer Science, and Applied Mathematics. 

I am looking forward to meeting highly motivated students who are interested in Biomedical Informatics, Natural Language Processing, Machine Learning, and Ontologies. I have successfully advised undergraduate and graduate students in Information Studies, Computer Science, Biomedical Informatics, and Statistics and published papers with them. Interested students should send his/her CV with particular research/project interests to Dr. He at "zhe AT fsu.edu".

Current Trainees and Students

Postdoctoral Scholars/ Visiting Assistant Professor

• Balu Bhasuran, PhD

  • 08/2024 - present: Visiting Assistant Professor

  • 07/2023 - 8/2024: Postdoctoral Research Fellow 

  • Topic: Biomedical Deep learning and Natural Language Processing, Large Language Models, EHR Predictive Modelling 

• Daniel Leme, PhD

  • 05/2025 - present: Postdoctoral Research Fellow

  • Topic: Gerontology and Public Health, Frailty Prediction

Application Developer / Web Developer

• Dhruv Kale, MS

  • 03/2024 - Present

  • Dr. He's role: Supervisor

  • Responsibility: Lead Developer of LabGenie, Web Developer for the Institute for Successful Longevity

PhD Students

• Forhan Bin Emdad, PhD Candidate, School of Information, Florida State University 

  • 08/2021 - present

  • Topic: Trustworthy AI and Explainable AI I in medicine

  • Dr. He's role: Chair of the Dissertation Committee

• Yuanying Pang, PhD Candidate, School of Information, Florida State University 

  • 08/2022 - present

  • Topic: Adoption of AI-based digital health interventions

  • Dr. He's role: Chair of the Dissertation Committee

• Xiaoyu Wang, PhD student, Department of Statistics, Florida State University

  • 8/2022 - present, Graduate Research Assistant

  • Topic: Prediction Models with EHR Data, NLP methods for extracting social determinants of health from clinical notes

  • Dr. He's role: Co-Chair of the Dissertation Committee

• Aejin Lee, PhD student, School of Information, Florida State University

  • 06/2024 - present

  • Topic: TBD

  • Dr. He's role: Chair of the Dissertation Committee

• Jiwoo Seo, PhD student, School of Information, Florida State University

  • 06/2025 - present

  • Topic: TBD

  • Dr. He's role: First-Year Advisor

Undergraduate Students

• Preetam Chamkura, October 2024 – April 2025

• Victoria Valko, October 2024 – April 2025

• Luis Sanchez, October 2024 – April 2025

• Harjith Pradeep, October 2024 – April 2025

• Yash Alva, October 2023 – April 2024

• Caroline Bennett, October 2023 – April 2024

• Angelique Deville, October 2023 – April 2024

• Hailey Thompson, October 2023 – April 2024

• Khoa Dao, October 2022 – April 2023

• Akhil Shiju, October 2020 – May 2022

• Stephanie Carmenates, October 2021 – April 2022

• Madelyn Dupuis, October 2021 – April 2022

• David Garner, October 2021 – April 2022

• Neissa Philemon, October 2021 – April 2022

• Shawntah Thomas, October 2021 – April 2022

• Jessica Valyou, October 2021 – April 2022

Alumni

Doctoral Degree Graduates

• Wenshan Han, PhD Graduate, Department of Statistics 

  • 9/2023 - 05/2024, Collaborating student (Dissertation Committee Member)

  • Topic: Modeling of the seasonality of lab tests using EHR data

  • Publications (N=2): AMIA 2024, BMC Medical Research Methodology 

  • First Employment: Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University of Arizona College of Public Health

  • Current Position: Tenure-Track Assistant Professor at University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth

• Alsan Erdengasileng,  PhD Graduate, Department of Statistics, Florida State University

  • 2019 - 2023, Graduate Research Assistant (Dissertation Committee Member)

  • Publications (N=5): SEPDA 2021a, SEPDA 2021b, BCB 2021, JAMIA Open 2021, AMIA 2022 Summit

  • First Employment: Data Scientist at Nationwide Children's Hospital

• Shubo Tian, PhD Graduate, Department of Statistics, Florida State University

  • 2020 - 2022, Graduate Research Assistant (Dissertation Committee Member)

  • Topic: Prediction Models with EHR Data

  • Publications (N=5): SEPDA 2021a, SEPDA 2021b, BCB 2021, AMIA 2022 Summit, Gerontologist 2022

  • First Employment: Research Scientist at National Center for Biotechnology Information, US National Library of Medicine

• Daniel Bis, PhD Graduate, Department of Computer Science, Florida State University

  • 2018 - 2022, Collaborating student (Dissertation Committee Member)

  • Topic: Word sense disambiguation, deep learning-based natural language processing 

  • Publications (N=2): BIBM 2018, BMC Bioinformatics 2019

  • First Employment: Applied Scientist at Amazon (Alexa AI)

• Aiwen Xing, PhD Graduate, Department of Statistics, Florida State University 

  • 2020 - 2022, Collaborating student (Dissertation Committee Member)

  • Topic: Meta-analysis for biomedical and translational research

  • First Employment: Senior Biostistical Scientist, Merck & Co. 

  • Publications (N=6): JAMIA Open 2021, JMIR 2020-1, JMIR 2020-2, ICHI 2021, AMIA 2021 Informatics Summit, PLOS One 2022

  • First Employment: Merck & Co. 

• Neelufar Payrovnaziri, PhD Graduate, School of Information, Florida State University

  • 3/2018 - 12/2021, Doctoral student advisee (Major professor) 

  • Topic: Explainable AI Models for Predicting Mortality for Patients with Major Cardiovascular Diseases

  • Publications (N=7): AMIA 2019 Informatics Summit, MEDINFO 2019, AMIA 2020 Informatics Summit,  IJCNN 2020, JAMIA 2020, AMIA 2021 Informatics Summit, JAMIA Open 2021

  • First Employment: Postdoc Scholar at Stanford University School of Medicine

  • Current Position: Data Scientist at UCI Health

• Biyang Yu, PhD candidate (ABD), School of Information, Florida State University 

  • 08/2016 - 2020, Collaborating student (Dissertation Committee Member)

  • Topic: Text Mining of Discussion Board Postings of D/deaf Online Communities

  • Publications (N=2): BIBM 2017, JMIR 2020

  • Poster presented (N=1): ASIS&T 2017 Poster

• Canlin Zhang, PhD Graduate, Department of Applied Mathematics, Florida State University

  • 3/2018 - 5/2021, Collaborating student (Dissertation Committee Member)

  • Topic: Word sense disambiguation

  • Publications (N=2): BIBM 2018, BMC Bioinformatics 2019

  • First Employment: Machine Learning Engineer, Circulo Health, Virginia, US

• Juan Xie, Visiting PhD Student, School of Information Resource Management, Nanjing University, China

  • 08/2018 - 09/2010, Collaborating student

  • Topic: Online Information Behavior of Young Moms

  • Publications (N=2): Computers in Human Behavior 2021, JMIR Cancer 2020

  • First Employment: Tenure-Track Assistant Professor in Hunan University, China

• Lynette Gerido, PhD Graduate, School of Information, Florida State University

  • 05/2017 - 05/2021, Collaborating Student (Dissertation Committee Member)

  • Topic: Clinical Trial Information Seeking, Participation, and Enrollment

  • Publications (N=1): JMIR 2019

  • Poster presented (N=4): AMIA 2018 Poster, ICHI 2018 Poster, ASIS&T 2017 Poster #1,  ASIS&T 2017 Poster #2

  • First Employment: Postdoc Fellow at University of Michigan School of Public Health

  • Current Employment: Tenure-track Assistant Professor at Case Western Reserve University

• Yiqi Xu, PhD Graduate, Department of Statistics,  Florida State University

  • 05/2019 - 05/2021, Collaborating student (Dissertation Committee Member)

  • Topic: Clinical research participation

• Jiwon Lee, PhD Graduate, Department of Statistics, Florida State University

  • 08/2016 - 08/2017, Graduate Research Assistant

  • Topic: Prevalence of Multiple Chronic Conditions in the National Inpatient Sample

  • Publications (N=1): JMIR 2018

  • First Employment: Mathematical Statistician at US Census Bureau, Washington DC

• Min Sook Park, PhD Graduate, School of Information, Florida State University

  • 08/2015 - 12/2015, Graduate Research Assistant

  • Topic: Analysis of Medical Vocabulary Coverage on Health-Related Social Media

  • Publications (N=2): JMIR Med Inform 2017,  iConference 2016

  • First Employment: Tenure-Track Assistant Professor, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

  • Current Position: Tenure-Track Assistant Professor, Florida State University

MS Degree Graduates

• Alex Moerschbacher, MSIT Graduate, School of Information, Florida State University

  • 06/2020 - 04/2021,  MSIT student advisee

  • Publications (N=1): SEPDA 2021

  • First Employment: Software Developer at General Motors

• Yu Lu, Specialist Student, School of Information, Florida State University

  • 06/2020 - 08/2021,  Specialist student advisee

  • Publications (N=4): MEDINFO 2019, AMIA 2020, JMIR 2020, iConference 2021 

  • First Employment: Software Developer at DOBI Medical International, Inc. Zhejiang, China

• Laura Barrett, Specialist Student, School of Information, Florida State University

  • 06/2018 - 08/2019, Master student, Doctoral student, Specialist student advisee

  • Publications (N=4): AMIA 2019 Informatics Summit, MEDINFO 2019, AMIA 2020 Informatics Summit, PLOS ONE 2022

  • First Employment: Florida Department of Health

• Xiang Tang, MS Graduate, Department of Statistics,  Florida State University

  • 11/2018 - 12/2019, Research Assistant

  • Topic: Assessing the Generalizability of Clinical Trials / Biostatistician

  • Publications (N=3): Sleep Health 2020,  JMIR 2019, AMIA 2020 Informatics Summit

  • First Employment: Associate Statistical Programmer at Boehringer Ingelheim

• Zhiwei Chen, MS in Computer Science, Florida State University

  • 08/2015 - 08/2017, Graduate Research Assistant (MS Thesis Committee Member)

  • Topic: Natural Language Processing on Biomedical and Social Media Text

  • Publications (N=7): BMC Med Inform and Decision Making 2018, JBI 2017, JMIR Med Inform 2017, BIBM 2017, BIBM 2016, EMBC 2016, iConference 2016

  • First employment: Software Engineer in Machine Learning, Evie Labs, Palo Alto, CA

  • Current employment: Senior Machine Learning Engineer, Roku Inc, Los Gatos, CA

High School Interns

• Brayden Lopez

  • 06/2025 - 07/2025, Research Intern at FSU Young Scholars Program 

  • College Acceptance: Pending

• Diana Cho

  • 06/2025 - 07/2025, Research Intern at FSU Young Scholars Program 

  • College Acceptance: Pending

• Wade Rogers 

  • 06/2024 - 07/2024, Research Intern at FSU Young Scholars Program 

  • College Acceptance: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Computer Science)

• Hansita Penikalapati

  • 06/2024 - 07/2024, Research Intern at FSU Young Scholars Program 

  • College Acceptance: Carnegie Mellon University (Computer Science); Duke University

Mentors

• Dr. Neil Charness, Professor, Department of Psychology, Florida State University (2015 - 2024, Faculty Mentor)

• Dr. Mia Lustria, Professor, School of Information, Florida State University (2015 - 2025, Faculty Mentor)

• Dr. Chunhua Weng, Professor, Department of Biomedical Informatics, Columbia University (2014 - 2015, Postdoc Advisor)

• Dr. James Geller, Professor, Department of Computer Science, New Jersey Institute of Technology (2009 - 2014, PhD Advisor)

• Dr. Yehoshua Perl, Professor, Department of Computer Science, New Jersey Institute of Technology (2009 - 2014, PhD Advisor)