2024
A Software Engineer in Dr. Clifford's lab named finalist in 2024 JWECIC at ISCE
9 February 2024 - Zuzana Koščová has been selected as a finalist for the 2024 Jos Willems Early Career Investigator Competition (JWECIC) with her work entitled "Prediction of atrial fibrillation from overnight Polysomnograms". Her work focuses on using machine learning and deep learning methods for the early prediction of atrial fibrillation from the ECG channel in polysomnographic recordings. Since atrial fibrillation is one of the most common cardiac arrhythmias and is associated with an increased risk of stroke and heart failure, early prediction of this pathology could help to implement appropriate stroke and heart failure prevention tools.
The competition will take place at the International Society of Computerized ECG conference in Braselton, GA in April.


2023
A postdoctoral fellow's paper won the 'Best Thematic Paper Award' at ML4H conference
December 2023 - Dr. Mohsen Shirazi, a postdoctoral fellow in the Clifford Lab, was awarded the Best Thematic Paper Award in "Health Equity and Global Health" for the publication Point-of-Care Real-Time Signal Quality for Fetal Doppler Ultrasound Using a Deep Learning Approach" at the Machine Learning for Health (ML4H) conference 2023.
This research, supervised by Dr. Katebi, Dr. Sameni and Dr. Clifford, and in collaboration with Wuqu'Kawoq | Maya Health Alliance, contributes to the team's ongoing efforts in fetal health monitoring in low-resource communities, founded by a Google.org Grant and the NIH.
In this study, the team developed a deep learning algorithm to accurately classify the quality of signals captured from an affordable 1D Doppler ultrasound device on an Android phone. This algorithm is in the process of being seamlessly integrated into the existing mobile application, to allow immediate feedback on data quality to midwives—a crucial element for reliable diagnostics.

New Emory institute harnesses the power of AI to improve health equity and patient outcomes
7 November 2023 - The Emory Empathetic AI for Health Institute, under the AI.Humanity program, led by Dr. Anant Madabhushi, aims to harness the potential of AI and big data to improve the detection, diagnosis, and treatment of various diseases. It brings together experts such as Drs. Gari Clifford, Judy Gichoya, and Marly van Assen, focusing on AI advancements for diverse patient groups. Emory AI.Humanity seeks to develop accessible and equitable AI tools and collaborate with various institutions to extend its impact globally. Read the article here.

safe+natal program receives a $1.8 million grant from Google.org
12 September 2023 - Dr. Gari Clifford and Dr. Rachel Hall-Clifford, who co-founded and have led the safe+natal program for the last 10 years, have received a $1.8 million grant from Google.org, together with the Maya Health Alliance | Wuqu' Kawoq, to use AI to improve maternal-child health in rural Guatemala. The safe+natal program equips Indigenous midwives with affordable monitoring technology, including smartphones, blood pressure cuffs, and ultrasound devices. This empowers midwives to monitor pregnancies, detect potential issues early, and connect expectant mothers with necessary follow-up care.
The Google.org grant will expand the program's reach, placing AI tools in the hands of Indigenous Mayan midwives, potentially saving lives at a significant scale. Together with BMI faculty Dr. Nasim Katebi (who developed many of the AI algorithms as part of her PhD thesis) and Dr. Reza Sameni, the team will continue to develop and translate a series of AI-driven innovations into the hands of midwives in remote regions.
This collaboration is part of Google.org's $25 million philanthropic challenge, supporting projects that harness AI to advance progress towards the UN's Sustainable Development Goals. Importantly, all 15 selected projects, including safe+natal, will be open-sourced to encourage further development and collaboration. Dr. Gari Clifford and his team emphasize the significance of community-led technology solutions, marking a substantial step forward in addressing maternal-child health disparities and preventing avoidable deaths in rural Guatemala. Read the article here.

safe+natal program was featured in Health Science Update
22 May 2023 - Dr. Gari Clifford's project, the Safe+Natal program, a maternal health initiative in Guatemala that has showcased significant success in enhancing pregnancy outcomes in Maya communities, has been featured in the Emory Health Science Update. The project is among the top five finalists under consideration for a $9 million grant from the MacArthur Foundation’s Lever for Change Maternal & Infant Health Award. Read the article here.

Dr. Gari Clifford Lab's research was featured in the Emory News Center
1 March 2023 - Dr. Clifford and his lab were featured in Emory News Center in an article titled "New study shows how machine learning can improve care for people with Rett syndrome" for their work published in PloS One. Dr. Clifford and his research team used the MC10 Biostamp patch to analyze the movement and cardiac activity of people living with Rett syndrome and found three specific patterns in the movement and heart rate that allowed them to accurately differentiate high-from low-symptom-severity individuals. Read the article here.

The George B. Moody PhysioNet Challenges were awarded the "Distinguished Achievement Award for Data Reuse
21 February 2023 - The George B. Moody PhysioNet Challenges were awarded the "Distinguished Achievement Award for Data Reuse", as a part of the DataWorks! Prize. The DataWorks! Prize, launched on May 11, 2022, is a partnership between the NIH Office of Data Science Strategy and the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) to highlight the role of data sharing and reuse in scientific discovery while recognizing and rewarding researchers who engage in these practices.
George B. Moody designed and led the Challenges from 2000 to 2015, when ill health prevented him continuing. Prof. Clifford has led the PhysioNet Challenges since 2015 and has been a key contributor to its parent resource, PhysioNet (The Research Resource for Complex Physiologic Signals), for over two decades. Prof. Reyna has co-led the PhysioNet Challenges since 2019, and has been instrumental in the development of its repeatable science standards. The team plans to use the $50,000 prize to enhance accessibility for the data in the Challenges.
Each year, the PhysioNet Challenges post novel datasets, and facilitates the development and distribution of open-source code to solve an outstanding problem in health data science, with a specific emphasis on temporal data. The Challenges are designed to maximize scientific repeatability and usability with a carefully designed data science framework. The products of the Challenges are cited thousands of times, and have supported an array of patents and a new generation of medical products. Emphasizing computational efficiency, data and algorithmic equity, and clinical applicability, Clifford and Reyna have innovated methods for sharing and reusing data, and evaluating state-of-the-art approaches to AI in medicine, as reflected in a recently invited JAMA editorial.

2023 George B. Moody PhysioNet/Challenge Announcement
February 2023 - This years's challenge is on predicting neurological recovery from coma after cardiac arrest using EEG.
The first deadline is April 8th 2023. More rules, links to code and data, and background can be found at the 2023 George B. Moody PhysioNet Challenge page.

Dr. Clifford spoke at 'Simuvaction' on "AI and Health Disparities on a Global Stage"
20 January 2023 - "The best kind of challenging" - Three Emory students join an international simulation to debate AI and health inequities. Dr. Gari Clifford, a chair of the Department of Biomedical Informatics, spoke at the event.

Dr. Gari Clifford elected as an IEEE Fellow
1 January 2023 - Dr. Gari Clifford has been elected as an IEEE Fellow as of Jan. 1st 2023 for contributions to machine-learning applications in cardiovascular time series.
The IEEE, or Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers is the world's leading (and largest) association of technical professionals with more than 423,000 members in over 160 countries around the world. Its objectives are the educational and technical advancement of electrical and electronic engineering, telecommunications, computer engineering and similar disciplines. The IEEE Grade of Fellow is the highest level of membership, conferred by the Board of Directors upon a person with an extraordinary record of accomplishments in any of the IEEE fields of interest. The total number of fellows selected in any one year does not exceed one-tenth of one percent of the total voting Institute membership.
2022
Dr. Gari Clifford helped explain the gulf between AI and clinical practice in JAMA
July 2022 - Dr. Clifford, together with Prof. Matthew Reyna from Emory University and Prof. Nsoesie from Boston University, published an invited viewpoint in The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) on "Rethinking Algorithm Performance Metrics for Artificial Intelligence in Diagnostic Medicine". The viewpoint focuses on how we often use the wrong optimization targets when applying machine learning to medical data, and how we can address this issue, and is part of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation's broader series on Diagnostic Excellence.

Dr. Gari Clifford spoke at a symposium
June 2022 - Dr. Clifford was invited to the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine to discuss the use of interpretable machine learning in healthcare and its impact on bias and ethics at a symposium on Interpretable and Explainable AI and Machine Learning.

Dr. Gari Clifford is appointed as an external advisor to SleepHuB
May 2022 - Dr. Gari Clifford is appointed as an external advisor to the University of Southern California Center for Sleep Health using Bioengineering (SleepHuB). SleepHuB is a unique network of clinicians, scientists and engineers who work collaboratively to conceptualize and operationalize translational projects related to sleep.

Dr. Gari Clifford Lab's research was featured in the Emory Medicine Magazine
February 2022 - Dr. Clifford and Dr. Hall-Clifford were featured in the Emory Medicine Magazine in an article titled "Every Mother, Every Baby" for their work on Co-Design of mHealth and AI-enabled diagnostic systems with the lay midwives of highland Guatemala. Read the article here.
2021
Dr. Gari Clifford's research was featured in Amazon Research Awards
December 2021 - Dr. Clifford's interview with Amazon Science on edge machine learning in healthcare was published in Amazon Research Awards, entitled: "Using machine learning to reduce costs, increase accuracy, and improve access in healthcare". Read the article here.

Clifford Lab's research was featured in the National Institutes of Health Spotlight
September 2021 - Dr. Clifford and Dr.Hall-Clifford’s Co-Design Lab initiative Safe+Natal which uses mHealth and AI to assist lay midwives in rural Guatemala was highlighted by the National Institutes of Health Spotlight in an article "Developing Mobile Health Solutions for Women in Guatemala". Read the article here.

An editorial of PhysioNet Challenge 2021 was featured in the Journal of Physiological Measurement
September 2021 - Drs. Clifford and Reyna presented the annual PhysioNet Challenge awards at the Computing in Cardiology 2021 (remotely) in Brno, Czech Republic. The Challenge focused on reduced lead ECG arrhythmia classification and led to over 60 publications and 57 pieces of contributed open-source software. An editorial describing the Challenge and summarizing the contributions was published in the Journal of Physiological Measurement. Read the research here.

Clifford Lab's research was highlighted by the Fogarty International Center
July 2021 - Clifford Lab's research on using mHealth and AI to assist lay midwives in rural Guatemala was highlighted by the Fogarty International Center (which partially funded the work), in their Global Health Matters Newsletter (Volume 20, Number 4, July/August 2021), in an article "mHealth app reduces LMIC pregnancy, delivery risks". Read the article here.

Dr. Clifford had an interview with the Academic Times
April 2021 - Dr. Clifford's interview with the Academic Times on measuring sleep with wearables in health was published, entitled: "These sleep monitoring innovations could make smartwatches better at tracking our slumber". Read the article here.
2020
An editorial of PhysioNet Challenge 2020 was featured in the Journal of Physiological Measurement
September 2020 - Dr. Clifford and Reyna presented the annual PhysioNet Challenge awards at the Computing in Cardiology 2020 (remotely) in Rimini, Italy. The Challenge focused on Classification of 12-lead ECGs and led to over 61 publications and 67 pieces of contributed open-source software. An editorial describing the Challenge and summarizing the contributions was published in the Journal of Physiological Measurement. Read the research here.

Clifford Lab partners with AliveCor
6 May 2020 - Dr. Gari Clifford and his lap partner with AliveCor to develop new cardiovascular insights with deep machine learning. Dr. Clifford will serve as an AliveCor consultant on machine learning and artificial intelligence. Read the article here.

Dr. Clifford delivered a keynote speech at the Society for Critical Care Medicine Annual Congress
16 February 2020 - Dr. Gari Clifford presented the Max Harry Weil Memorial Lecture on the future of artificial intelligence in critical care: A Tsunami of Predictions or a Consensus of Opinions at the Society for Critical Care Medicine Annual Congress in Miami. An accompanying editorial can be found here. Watch the presentation here.

Clifford Lab's work was highlighted in the Guatemalan national newspaper
12 January 2020 - The Guatemalan national newspaper 'El Periodico' highlights Dr. Gari Clifford's work with their partner NGO, Wuqu' Kawoq - Maya Health Alliance: "Wuku' Kawoq, tecnología para evitar muertes maternas" (Wuku' Kawoq, technology to prevent maternal deaths) on their front page.
2019
An editorial of PhysioNet Challenge 2019 was featured in the Journal of Physiological Measurement
September 2019 - Dr. Clifford and Dr.Reyna presented the annual PhysioNet Challenge awards at the Computing in Cardiology 2019 in Singapore. Focusing on Early Prediction of Sepsis from Clinical Data, the Challenge leveraged BMI's focused research in this area to share a three-hospital electronic medical record database labeled for sepsis onset. More than 55 papers and 91 independent open-source software entries. More information can be found in this summary editorial. Read the editorial here.

Clifford Lab's work was highlighted in the Guatemalan national newspaper 'El Periodico'
20 May 2019 - The Guatemalan national newspaper 'El Periodico' highlights Dr. Gari Clifford's work with their partner NGO, Wuqu' Kawoq - Maya Health Alliance: "Se reduce brecha de mortalida materna en Chimaltenango, Referencias para asistencia hospitalaria aumentan gracias al uso de tecnología” (Maternal mortality gap in Chimaltenango reduced, Referrals for hospital assistance increase thanks to the use of technology).

Two new basic science chairs reflect One Emory focus on collaborative research
25 April 2019 - Dr. Clifford, appointed chair of Emory Department of Biomedical Informatics, and Dr. Sundberg, recruited to head the Department of Biochemistry, are key figures in advancing collaborative research efforts within the university's One Emory framework, with Dr. Clifford expanding the department's funding portfolio and leading innovative partnerships in critical care data analysis and machine learning applications in medicine. Read the article here.
2018
An editorial of PhysioNet Challenge 2018 was featured in the Journal of Physiological Measurement
September 2018 - Dr. Clifford presented the annual PhysioNet Challenge awards at the Computing in Cardiology 2018 in Maastricht, The Netherlands. The Challenge, titled You Snooze, You Win, focused on classifying arousals from sleep data and led to over 32 publications and 18 pieces of contributed open-source software. A focus issue in the topic considered by the Challenge was published in Physiological Measurement. Read the editorial here.

Clifford Lab's work was featured in the Guatemalan national newspaper 'Prensa Libre'
26 August 2018 - The Guatemalan national newspaper 'Prensa Libre' highlights Dr. Gari Clifford's work with their partner NGO, Wuqu' Kawoq - Maya Health Alliance: "App Salva Vidas: La technología llega en auxilia de las comadronas” [App Saves Lives: The technology arrives to assist midwives]. Aug 26, 2018. pgs. 1, 14-17. Accompanied by online video, “Una app para control materno en Tecpán, Chimaltenango” (An app for maternal control in Tecpán, Chimaltenango). Watch the video here.
2017
Dr. Clifford had an interview with WSB about Moyo Health
15 September 2017 - Dr. Gari Clifford spoke to WSB-TV2 about a newly developed health care app "Moyo", jointly developed with Morehouse School of Medicine under funding from the National Science Foundation which aims to improve health and provide economic/educational opportunities to under-represented groups. Watch the interview here.

Clifford team's app saves lives of Maya women in Guatemala
5 September 2017 - Dr. Clifford's team's app for improving perinatal outcomes in rural Guatemala, developed under NIH funding from the NICHD and Fogarty International Center, was highlighted by MSNBC in a recent documentary on its use by their partner NGO, Wuqu' Kawoq - Maya Health Alliance. Watch the video here.

Our work on mHealth for mental illness covered in Emory Lab Land article
July 2017 - Imagine someone undergoing treatment by a psychiatrist. How do we know the treatment is really working or should be modified? To assess whether the patient's condition is objectively improving, the doctor could ask him or her to take home a heart rate monitor and wear it continuously for 24 hours. An app connected to the monitor could then track how much the patient's heart rate varies over time and how much the patient moves. Read the article here.
2016
Emory and Morehouse team develops mobile device platform to improve community heath
December 2016 - The team led by Dr. Gari Clifford, PhD, at Emory University and researchers at Morehouse School of Medicine are building an ambitious project to work with teen-aged and young adult minority communities in metro Atlanta to co-create an mHealth (mobile health) platform supported by mobile devices. Read the article here.

PhD Student Receives Highest Academic Achievement
November 2016 - Pradyumna Suresha, the newest PhD student in our lab, was awarded the Institutional Gold Medal for securing highest GPA in B.Tech -Electronics and Communication Engineering, batch of 2015-16; as well as 1986 Batch Gold Medal for being the student with best academic record in the department of ECE, NITK Surathkal India. Congratulations!

Now Hiring
October 2016 - We have openings for faculty and research positions in machine learning and signal processing applied to biomedical informatics and engineering. Jobs Here!

2016 Cardiology Challenge Winners Announced
14 September 2016 - The winners of this year's PhysioNet/CinC Challenge were announced at the CinC Conference. Congratulations to everyone for a tight run race! We enjoyed running this and hope you all submit to the upcoming Physiological Measurement Special Issue.

Emory Exposome
28 May 2016 - In support of the Exposome mission, the Clifford Lab will be offering live interactive demos to demonstrate some of the useful capabilities of the Raspberry Pi, sensor technologies and cloud computing. Event takes place June 12 in the plaza level auditorium of the Claudia Nance Rollins building.
More information can be found at the event's website, located here: Emory Hercules.

Chair Promotion
April 2016- Dr. Clifford appointed Interim Chair of Emory's Department of Biomedical Informatics.

PhysioNet / Computing in Cardiology Challenge 2016
7 May 2016 - The Official Phase of the PhysioNet/Computing in Cardiology Challenge 2016 has begun.

February 2016 - The PhysioNet/Computing in Cardiology Challenge 2016, co-organised by the Clifford Lab and the Laboratory for Computational Physiology, is now open.