Assistant Professor Prateek Prasanna from the Department of Biomedical Informatics at Stony Brook University has been honored with the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award for his project, “CAREER: Towards Gaze-guided Medical Image Analysis.”
The initiative focuses on utilizing eye gaze data to understand how radiologists and pathologists visually interpret medical images. By incorporating this human expertise, the project aims to improve the interpretability and diagnostic performance of machine learning systems in both radiology and digital pathology.
Prasanna expressed enthusiasm about receiving the award, stating, “I’m thrilled to receive the NSF CAREER award to advance AI for medical image interpretation. This support will help us build models that learn from the way expert clinicians see, think, and reason.” He further explained that by integrating experts' visual navigation through complex medical images via their gaze patterns, there is potential to enhance both accuracy and interpretability of AI-driven diagnostic tools. "Our work not only advances the science of human-AI collaboration but also has the potential to transform training, decision-making, and patient care across a wide range of clinical applications," he added.
At Stony Brook University’s Imaging Informatics for Precision Medicine (IMAGINE) Lab, Prasanna leads efforts in developing machine learning tools that integrate imaging, pathology, and genomic data to inform treatment decisions. The lab prioritizes combining machine-generated insights with expert clinical interpretations to refine diagnostic workflows. Their research includes interpretable AI with a focus on computational biomarkers in scenarios where data is scarce or incomplete.
The CAREER project's educational initiatives include mentoring trainees through hands-on research experiences and curriculum development like the SBU Radiology Informatics Microcredential Program. This program aims to prepare practitioners and foster communication between engineers and clinicians.
Joel Saltz, founding chair of the Department of Biomedical Informatics at Stony Brook University remarked, “We are proud to celebrate Dr. Prateek Prasanna for receiving the NSF CAREER Award... This award recognizes Dr. Prasanna’s promise as a leader in integrating cutting-edge research with transformative education in biomedical informatics and AI-driven healthcare solutions.”
In addition to this accolade, Prasanna recently received an NIH R03 grant alongside Stony Brook's School of Dental Medicine for an interdisciplinary project stemming from collaborations facilitated by Stony Brook’s Institute for Engineering-Driven Medicine.
Prasanna holds a PhD in Biomedical Engineering from Case Western Reserve University; an MS in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Rutgers University; and a BTech in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from India’s National Institute of Technology in Calicut.
The NSF CAREER Award supports early-career faculty poised to lead advancements within their disciplines by establishing them as role models in both research and education.