PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Tianxi Cai

Also known as 蔡天西

Tianxi Cai develops statistical and machine learning methods for electronic health records, risk prediction, and personalized medicine. She earned a mathematics degree from the University of Science and Technology of China in 1995 and a biostatistics doctorate from Harvard in 1999, was an assistant professor at the University of Washington from 2000 to 2002, and returned to the Harvard faculty in 2002. She became a Fellow of the American Statistical Association in 2011, jointly supervised the semi-supervised PheCAP phenotyping pipeline in 2019, became a Fellow of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics in 2025, and was named the Mosteller Statistician of the Year in February 2026. As of October 2026, she is the John Rock Professor of Population and Translational Data Sciences at Harvard and a professor of biomedical informatics at Harvard Medical School. She directs the Translational Data Science Center for a Learning Health System.

Now at
Harvard Medical School, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Translational Data Science Center for a Learning Health System
Works
611
Citations
22,033
h-index
72

Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 17 October 2026.

Timeline

  1. 1995–1999

    Mathematics and a doctorate

    She earns a bachelor's degree in mathematics from the University of Science and Technology of China in 1995 and a doctorate in biostatistics from Harvard in 1999.

  2. 2000–2002

    Faculty years in Seattle

    From 2000 to 2002 she is an assistant professor of biostatistics at the University of Washington, and in 2002 she returns to Harvard as a faculty member.

  3. 2011

    Fellow of the ASA

    The American Statistical Association names her a Fellow in 2011.

  4. 2012–2018

    Three Harvard professorships

    In 2012 she becomes a professor of biostatistics at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, in 2016 a professor of biomedical informatics at Harvard Medical School, and in 2018 the John Rock Professor of Population and Translational Data Science.

  5. November 2019

    The PheCAP phenotyping pipeline

    In November 2019 she and Katherine P. Liao jointly supervise PheCAP, a high-throughput semi-supervised pipeline that uses machine learning to phenotype patients in electronic medical records.

  6. 2025

    An IMS fellowship

    The Institute of Mathematical Statistics names her a Fellow in 2025.

  7. February 2026

    Mosteller Statistician of the Year

    In February 2026 she is named the Mosteller Statistician of the Year. She is also named co-editor of the Theory and Methods section of the Journal of the American Statistical Association.

  8. As of October 2026

    Professor at Harvard

    As of October 2026 she is the John Rock Professor of Population and Translational Data Sciences at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and a professor of biomedical informatics at Harvard Medical School. She directs the Translational Data Science Center for a Learning Health System. Her research focuses on risk prediction and personalized medicine, with statistical and machine learning methods for electronic health record data.

Sources and credits

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  1. Tianxi Cai - Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org. Checked 16 October 2026.
  2. Tianxi Cai celehs.hms.harvard.edu. Checked 16 October 2026.
  3. Tianxi Cai | Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University radcliffe.harvard.edu. Checked 16 October 2026.
  4. Tianxi Cai | Department of Biomedical Informatics dbmi.hms.harvard.edu. Checked 16 October 2026.
  5. High-throughput phenotyping with electronic medical record data using a common semi-supervised approach (PheCAP) nature.com. Checked 16 October 2026.
  6. Tianxi Cai named 2026 Mosteller Statistician | Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health hsph.harvard.edu. Checked 16 October 2026.
  7. Tianxi Cai | Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health hsph.harvard.edu. Checked 16 October 2026.