Pervasive Intelligent Systems (Persist) Lab

AI holds great promise for improving human communication and interaction. However, data-driven solutions often overlook key human-centric challenges, such as ambiguous and fragmented information and implicit contexts. At the Pervasive Intelligent Systems Lab (PersistLab), we develop socio-technical AI methods and systems that enhance communication, decision-making, and well-being in high-stakes domains such as healthcare. Our research bridges natural language processing, human–AI interaction, and computational healthcare to develop and validate novel methods and systems that understand context, uncertainty, and human intent. We study how people communicate about health by collecting and analyzing multimodal data from patient–provider portals, online health communities, and social and behavioral sensing. We create domain-informed representations of data by engaging with different stakeholders, including patients, clinicians, patient advocates, community engagement partners, and clinical and public health researchers. Supported by NIH, NSF, Google, CTSA, and institutional funding, our work advances the science of collaborative intelligence, where humans and AI systems work together to improve health communication, coordination, and outcomes.

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