Linyue (Joy) Fan, a PhD graduate student in biomedical engineering, was selected as a recipient of the Avanessians Fellowship for the 2024 Spring semester. Every year, the Avanessians Doctoral Fellowships for Engineering Thought Leaders and Innovators in Data Science support fellows across Engineering disciplines whose research focuses on or intersects with data science.
Joy develops novel machine learning models that can leverage information across the wide range of available modalities to dissect the complexity of cancer. Specifically, she designed ECHIDNA, a novel probabilistic model to explain changes in tumor cell function according to their genetic alterations. This can explain why some cells respond to treatments, and some are resistant.
As part of the Azizi lab, Joy is also involved in developing DECIPHER, a deep probabilistic model aimed at understanding how cancer cells derail from normal cells.