Chao Yan, PhD, MS
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Chao Yan, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biomedical Informatics at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (appointed in September 2026). He is also an affiliated member of the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center (VICC) and an investigator of the NIH-funded Caribbean, Central & South America Network for HIV Epidemiology. He earned his PhD in computer science from Vanderbilt University in 2022. Dr. Yan’s research focuses on developing computational methods, particularly AI/ML algorithms, to unlock the full potential of biomedical data while promoting their ethical use to improve health care delivery. His work spans several key areas: (i) creating generative AI algorithms for multi-modal synthetic health data generation to broaden data access and maximize their analytical value; (ii) designing trustworthy AI/ML models for clinical diagnostics and interventions; (iii) leveraging large language models and graph technologies to accelerate biomedical research and clinical applications; and (iv) applying network science to reveal complex structures in health care systems and their associations with patient outcomes.
He is a recipient of the NIH NLM K99/R00 Pathway to Independence Award and the Tennessee Center for AIDS Research (TN-CFAR) Development Core Award, both awarded in 2024. His work has been recognized with numerous honors, including selection as one of the best articles in clinical research informatics published in 2020 (featured in the 2021 International Medical Informatics Association Yearbook) and a Distinguished Paper Award at the 2019 AMIA Annual Symposium.
Dr. Yan is an active contributor to the medical informatics community. He was inducted as a Fellow of the American Medical Informatics Association (FAMIA) in 2025. He was an elected member of the JAMIA Student Editorial Board and now serves on the JAMIA Editorial Board for the 2025–2027 term. He has been invited to edit special issues and collections for leading journals, including BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making. He served on the Scientific Program Committee for the 2024 AMIA Annual Symposium and is the organizer and moderator of the NIH AIM-AHEAD AI Optimization Discussion Forum and the NIH Bridge2AI Discussion Forum on Emerging ELSI Issues series.