PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Ahmed Alaa

Also known as Ahmed M. Alaa

Ahmed Alaa is a machine learning researcher whose work spans clinical prediction and medical AI evaluation. He completed a UCLA doctorate in electrical and computer engineering in 2019 under Mihaela van der Schaar, and coauthored AutoPrognosis, which automates the design of clinical prediction models. Postdoctoral work took him to UCLA, Cambridge, MIT and the Broad Institute before he joined UC Berkeley and UCSF in 2022. His later papers explored heart digital twins and the validity of medical language model benchmarks. As of October 2026, he is an assistant professor of Computational Precision Health at UC Berkeley and UCSF and an affiliated assistant professor of statistics at Berkeley.

Works
140
Citations
3,006
h-index
27
Badges

Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 27 October 2026.

Timeline

  1. 2015–2019

    Doctoral research at UCLA

    From 2015 to 2019, he studies clinical decision-making at UCLA in Mihaela van der Schaar's lab. He completes his PhD in electrical and computer engineering in 2019.

  2. 2018

    AutoPrognosis for clinical prediction

    With Mihaela van der Schaar, he presents AutoPrognosis at the International Conference on Machine Learning in 2018. The system uses Bayesian optimization to design clinical prediction pipelines and provides rules that link patient features to risk groups.

  3. 2021

    A UCLA doctoral award

    In 2021, he receives the Edward K. Rice Outstanding Doctoral Student Award from UCLA's Samueli School of Engineering.

  4. By 2022

    Postdoctoral research in medicine

    His postdoctoral appointments include MIT's CSAIL and IMES, the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, and a joint post at UCLA and Cambridge's Center for AI in Medicine. From 2021 to 2022, he is a postdoctoral fellow at the Eric and Wendy Schmidt Center.

  5. 2022

    Joining Berkeley and UCSF

    In 2022, he joins UC Berkeley and UCSF as one of the first assistant professors in their Computational Precision Health program, with affiliations in Berkeley's EECS and Statistics departments.

  6. 2024

    Med-Real2Sim heart models

    At NeurIPS in 2024, he coauthors Med-Real2Sim, a method for identifying digital twins of heart function from noninvasive echocardiogram videos. The work combines self-supervised learning with physical models and demonstrates uses in disease detection and simulated clinical trials.

  7. 2024

    Precision medicine research awards

    In 2024, he receives a Marcus Program Award in Precision Medicine and a Hellman Fellowship.

  8. 2025

    Google Research Scholar support

    In 2025, Google selects him for its Research Scholar Program in Health Research, supporting his work on deep learning, plasma proteomics and clinical trial findings.

  9. 2025

    Testing medical language benchmarks

    At ICML in 2025, he coauthors Position: Medical Large Language Model Benchmarks Should Prioritize Construct Validity. The paper uses clinical data to test whether benchmarks measure their intended abilities and reports gaps in their construct validity.

  10. As of October 2026

    Professor of computational precision health

    As of October 2026, he is an assistant professor of Computational Precision Health at UC Berkeley and UCSF and an affiliated assistant professor in Berkeley's Department of Statistics. His lab develops generative AI to support clinical decisions and evaluates its performance and impact in healthcare.

Career

  1. Since 2022University of California, BerkeleyAssistant Professor of Computational Precision Health
  2. Since 2022University of California, San FranciscoAssistant Professor of Computational Precision Health
  3. 2023MIT CSAILPostdoctoral Researcher
  4. 2022–2023Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyPostdoctoral Researcher
  5. 2021–2022Broad InstitutePostdoctoral Researcher
  6. 2020University of CambridgePostdoctoral Researcher
  7. 2014–2021University of California, Los AngelesPostdoctoral Researcher

Education

  1. 2019University of California, Los AngelesPhD in electrical and computer engineering

From the biography and OpenAlex affiliations (the years of papers that list the organization), so some years are approximate.

Colleagues

People named in this biography, and people with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

Photo: We have no published photo of Ahmed Alaa yet. Send us a free-licensed photo.

  1. The van der Schaar Lab congratulates Ahmed Alaa on his appointment as Assistant Professor vanderschaar-lab.com. Checked 27 October 2026.
  2. 2021 UCLA Samueli Awards/Awardees | UCLA Samueli School Of Engineering samueli.ucla.edu. Checked 27 October 2026.
  3. People — Alaa Lab alaa-lab.com. Checked 27 October 2026.
  4. AutoPrognosis: Automated Clinical Prognostic Modeling via Bayesian Optimization with Structured Kernel Learning proceedings.mlr.press. Checked 27 October 2026.
  5. Alumni ericandwendyschmidtcenter.org. Checked 27 October 2026.
  6. Med-Real2Sim: Non-Invasive Medical Digital Twins using Physics-Informed Self-Supervised Learning proceedings.nips.cc. Checked 27 October 2026.
  7. Ahmed M. Alaa — Alaa Lab alaa-lab.com. Checked 27 October 2026.
  8. Research Scholar Program recipients (2020-2025) research.google. Checked 27 October 2026.
  9. Position: Medical Large Language Model Benchmarks Should Prioritize Construct Validity proceedings.mlr.press. Checked 27 October 2026.
  10. Ahmed Alaa | Department of Statistics statistics.berkeley.edu. Checked 27 October 2026.