Center for Advanced Intelligence Project

Abstract:
The brain and artificial intelligence are both research frontiers of our time. Scientific understanding of natural intelligence and advancing in silico intelligence (AI) are closely interlocked. From the history of AI development, we can clearly see that AI has been and is being inspired by natural intelligence. But there is a gap between today’s expectations of what AI can do and what AI can really do. In this talk, I will identify these gaps and present our innovative approaches to bridge the gaps between neuroscience and AI by integrating natural intelligence, biological principles, domain knowledge, and trustworthiness into AI models. I will also demonstrate how these models advance brain health research in neurodegenerative diseases.

Bio:
Ruogu Fang, M.S., Ph.D. is a tenured Associate Professor and Pruitt Family Endowed Faculty Fellow in the J. Crayton Pruitt Family Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Florida. She is the Director of the Smart Medical Informatics Learning and Evaluation (SMILE) Lab, Associate Director of the Intelligent Critical Care Center (IC3), and affiliated faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Computer and Information Science and Engineering, Radiology, and Center for Cognitive Aging and Memory in McKnight Brain Institute. She received her Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Cornell University.

Dr. Fang has established a well-recognized research and educational program focused on bridging Brain and Artificial Intelligence. Her research themes include artificial intelligence (AI)-empowered brain health and brain-inspired AI. Her transdisciplinary research impact has spanned from creating a new modularized machine learning system for early diagnosis of neurodegenerative diseases using novel imaging to individualized intervention using non-invasive brain stimulation to prevent dementia and to neuroscience-informed next-generation AI systems. Furthermore, her lab has been continuously funded by NSF, NIH, AFRL, ORAU, and industry since 2016. Dr. Fang serves as the Principal Investigator (PI) and Co-Investigator on 30 funded grants, among which she served as PI on 14 grants, with a total funding of $43 M, and PI of $6 M. She has eight issued patents and two pending. She was selected as the Rising Stars by the Academy of Science, Engineering, and Medicine of Florida (ASEMFL), the inaugural recipient of the Robin Sidhu Memorial Young Scientist Award from the Society of Brain Mapping and Therapeutics, and received the Best Paper Award from the IEEE International Conference on Image Processing, University of Florida Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering Faculty Award for Excellence in Innovation, UF BME Faculty Research Excellence Award, among others. She has 100+ peer-reviewed publications, including highly respected journals of Lancet Digital Health Lancet Digital Health, Medical Image Analysis, IEEE Transaction on Medical Imaging, that are well cited and frequently featured by international major media (e.g., Forbes Magazine, The Washington Post, ABC, National Geography, The Hindu, EveSmart, and Eminetra). She also serves on the Editorial Board of leading journals including Medical Image Analysis, Computerized Medical Imaging and Graphics, Frontiers of Human Neuroscience, and President of Women in MICCAI (WiM) of the Medical Image Computing and Computer Assisted Intervention (MICCAI) Society.