PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Jianhua Yao

Also known as J Yao, J. Yao

Jianhua Yao is a medical AI researcher whose work spans computer-aided detection, medical imaging and computational genomics. He earned a computer science PhD from Johns Hopkins University in 2002 and began leading an NIH clinical image processing service group. His work includes non-rigid image registration, deep mining of radiology images and reports, and convolutional networks for computer-aided detection. In 2019, he served as Chief Scientist of Tencent AI Lab Medical Center, and AIMBE elected him to its College of Fellows in 2022. As of October 2026, he works in Tencent's AI for Life Sciences Lab and coauthors scTransMIL, an AI framework for cancer phenotype prediction from single-cell profiles.

Now at
Tencent

Timeline

  1. 2002

    A PhD and NIH group

    In 2002, he earns a Ph.D. in computer science from Johns Hopkins University and begins leading a clinical image processing service group at NIH.

  2. 2003

    Flexible mesh registration

    In 2003, he coauthors a paper with Russell Taylor on non-rigid medical image registration using multiple-layer flexible mesh template matching.

  3. 2015

    Mining radiology images

    In 2015, he coauthors a deep-learning system that mines semantic interactions between radiology images and reports from a hospital database.

  4. 2016

    CNNs for detection

    He coauthors a 2016 study that applies deep convolutional neural networks to computer-aided detection in medical imaging.

  5. November 2019

    Chief Scientist at Tencent

    In November 2019, he serves as Chief Scientist of Tencent AI Lab Medical Center. He outlines AI work on pathology diagnosis and prognosis models and pathological-omics analysis.

  6. 2022

    AIMBE College of Fellows

    He is elected to the AIMBE College of Fellows in 2022.

  7. April 2024

    Medical imaging and genomics

    In April 2024, he is Chief Scientist of AI Healthcare at Tencent AI Lab, with research spanning medical imaging, computational genomics and precision medicine.

  8. As of October 2026

    Tencent's Life Sciences Lab

    He works in Tencent's AI for Life Sciences Lab. In September 2026, he coauthors scTransMIL, an AI framework that predicts sample-level cancer phenotypes from single-cell transcriptomic profiles.

Career

  1. Since 2019TencentChief Scientist, Chief Scientist of AI Healthcare
  2. From 2002United States Department of Health and Human ServicesGroup Leader

Education

  1. 2002Johns Hopkins UniversityPhD

From the biography.

  1. 11% of AI doctorate holders from 2010 to 2016 founded or led a company or lab by 10 years after graduationIncludes Jianhua Yao. We estimate how often AI doctorate holders founded or led a company or lab by 10 years after graduation, how waiting times compare between founders and top jobs, and which universities trained the most.
  2. Google alumni have founded or led 133 other organizations, more than any other AI labIncludes Tencent. We estimate that alumni of 17 major AI labs went on to found or lead 350 other organizations, including 226 they founded, and we trace 472 career moves directly between 23 labs since 2010.
  3. The company share of AI researchers’ top papers was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974Includes Tencent. We estimate where the people shaping AI worked when their most-cited papers appeared: the company share was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974, and Google led all organizations in 2020–2024.
  4. Companies supply the most prior-work hires at 7 of the 9 frontier AI labsIncludes Tencent. Our estimates of the organizations where 550 people worked directly before joining 9 frontier AI labs across 620 career transitions, comparing the main feeder organizations per lab.

Colleagues

People with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

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

  1. 上海交通大学医学图像计算实验室 | The Medical Image Computing Lab mic.sjtu.edu.cn. Checked 21 October 2026.
  2. Non-rigid registration and correspondence finding in medical image analysis using multiple-layer flexible mesh template matching - Johns Hopkins University pure.johnshopkins.edu. Checked 21 October 2026.
  3. Interleaved Text/Image Deep Mining on a Large-Scale Radiology Database for Automated Image Interpretation arxiv.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  4. Deep Convolutional Neural Networks for Computer-Aided Detection: CNN Architectures, Dataset Characteristics and Transfer Learning arxiv.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  5. Bridging Gaps in Healthcare Industry with Technology - Tencent tencent.com. Checked 21 October 2026.
  6. Jianhua Yao, Ph.D. COF-7148 - AIMBE aimbe.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  7. Research and Application of Artificial Intelligence in Pathological and Genomic Computing cse.hkust.edu.hk. Checked 21 October 2026.
  8. scTransMIL bridges patient-level disease states and single-cell transcriptomics for cancer screening and heterogeneity inference pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. Checked 21 October 2026.