July 30, 2026

Congratulations to the newest cohort of University of Utah One-U Responsible AI Initiative postdoctoral fellows. The program includes salary and benefits for two years and a research appointment at the Scientific Computing and Imaging Institute. Read more about postdoctoral fellowships.

Emily Eichenlaub: Responsible translation of AI-driven pose estimation into post-stroke inpatient rehabilitation

Thematic Area: Health Care and Wellness
Faculty Mentors: One-U Responsible AI Initiative faculty fellow Maggie French, Department of Physical Therapy and Athletic Training; Scott Uhlrich, Department of Mechanical Engineering

Gait impairments after stroke are associated with increased fall risk, reduced independence, and diminished quality of life, yet traditional clinical assessments have only moderate associations with these measures and fail to comprehensively measure gait function. Emily Eichenlaub’s work examines how responsible AI can help patients at the bedside. She’ll deploy an affordable, scalable video-based motion capture system to more comprehensively quantify gait impairments for inpatients undergoing post-stroke rehabilitation. The system will use AI-driven pose estimation to provide new insights into patient recovery and inform clinical decision-making.

In May, Eichenlaub earned a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina and North Carolina State University Lampe Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering. She holds a bachelor's in the same field from the University of Delaware Honors College.

Jeff Swan: Protein sequence-function analysis for the identification of better drug targets

Thematic Areas: Health Care and Wellness
Faculty Mentors: Chris Hill, Department of Biochemistry; Chris Miles, Department of Mathematics

Most modern medicines work by targeting proteins in the body. However, major challenges exist in identifying which proteins to target for a given disease, and where on the protein a drug should attach for maximum effectiveness. Jeff Swan is tackling this bottleneck using specialized AI models that treat proteins’ genetic sequences as a language, decoding how they translate into biological function. Through his research, he will develop methods to extract the AI’s internal decision-making processes and use them to identify the chemical structures within proteins that make the most valuable targets for pharmaceutical intervention. This strategy will then be applied to a broad range of potential drug targets, providing proof-of-concept and paving the way for new therapeutic discoveries. Ultimately, Swan’s research aims to streamline drug development, offering hope to patients who currently lack effective treatment options.

Swan has worked in the laboratory of Chris Hill since 2024 as a Jane Coffins Childs Postdoctoral Fellow. He holds a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of California Santa Cruz, following a master's in chemistry from the University of Colorado Boulder, and a bachelor's in biochemistry and molecular biology from Michigan State University.

Xinyuan Yan: A scalable visual analytics framework for cross-disciplinary responsible AI education

Thematic Areas: Teaching and Learning; Health Care and Wellness; Environment
Faculty Mentors: One-U Responsible AI Initiative faculty fellow Ana Marasović, Kahlert School of Computing; Arul Mishra, Department of Marketing

Xinyuan Yan’s project develops a scalable visual analytics framework for responsible AI that helps higher education students understand and diagnose AI behavior. Building on research in explainable AI, topological analysis, and AI error diagnosis, he will create interactive educational tools for exploring bias and failure across three stages of the machine-learning pipeline: data, model, and output. Applied to domains including health care, environmental science, and social systems, this work aims to strengthen AI literacy across disciplines and promote the responsible development of AI in society.

Yan joined the University of Utah in 2021 to work toward a Ph.D. in computer science under advisor Bei Wang Phillips. He expects to graduate this fall. He holds a bachelor's in the same field from Shandong University in Qingdao, China.