Wei Qiu

Assistant Professor @Rice ECE & CS (start Jan 2026)

Wei_Qiu_profile.jpg

I am a final year PhD student at the Paul Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington, supervised by Su-In Lee. I will be joining Rice University as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering with a joint faculty appointment in the Department of Computer Science, starting in January 2026. Before my PhD, I earned a BS in Data Science and Big Data Technology at Yuanpei College, Peking University. Please see my CV for more information.

I am recruiting a postdoc (Spring 2026), two PhD students (Fall 2026), and students at all levels for research opportunities — please reach out if you are interested, and see the details in the lab openings.

research focus

Our research focuses broadly on AI for Biomedicine, developing and applying advanced machine learning techniques to tackle fundamental challenges in biology and healthcare. We are particularly interested in:

  1. Aging and Age-related Diseases: Using AI to explore the mechanisms of aging and age-related diseases through multi-modality data modeling, aiming to uncover actionable biological insights and inform precision medicine.
  2. Foundation Models for Biomedical Data: Leveraging foundation models to integrate diverse biomedical data modalities and address complex problems in biology and healthcare.
  3. Interpretable and Trustworthy Biomedical AI: Developing explainable AI (XAI) methods to enhance the transparency, interpretability, and reliability of AI systems for biomedical research and clinical applications.

lab openings

I am recruiting one postdoctoral researcher to start in Spring 2026.If you are interested, please email me your CV and research statement.

I am also recruiting two PhD students to start in Fall 2026. Please apply through the Rice ECE PhD or Rice CS PhD program and list me as one of your Faculty of Interest. Feel free to email me with any questions.

If you are interested in a research opportunity (e.g., undergraduate students, master’s students, or PhD students seeking rotations), please email me directly with your information.

news

Dec 17, 2024 DeepProfile is now available in Nature Biomedical Engineering!
Oct 23, 2024 DeepProfile is accepted to Nature Biomedical Engineering!
Jun 01, 2024 I am presenting our research on AI with aging at the Nathan Shock Centers Directors Meeting and am attending the 52nd AGE Annual Meeting. See you in Madison!
Apr 22, 2024 I am one of the organizers for the AIMBA (AI Meets Biology of Aging) meeting, where I also present our ENABL Age project.
Dec 01, 2023 ENABL Age is accepted and chosen as the Cover Article for Lancet Healthy Longevity!

selected publications

  1. NBME
    A deep profile of gene expression across 18 human cancers
    Wei Qiu, Ayse B Dincer, Joseph D Janizek, Safiye Celik, and 3 more authors
    Accepted to Nature Biomedical Engineering, 2024
  2. Lancet HL
    ExplaiNAble BioLogical Age (ENABL Age): an artificial intelligence framework for interpretable biological age
    Wei Qiu, Hugh Chen, Matt Kaeberlein, and Su-In Lee
    The Lancet Healthy Longevity, 2023
  3. ICML
    Learning to maximize mutual information for dynamic feature selection
    Ian Connick Covert, Wei Qiu, Mingyu Lu, Na Yoon Kim, and 2 more authors
    In International Conference on Machine Learning , 2023
  4. bioRxiv
    Isolating structured salient variations in single-cell transcriptomic data with StrastiveVI
    Wei Qiu, Ethan Weinberger, and Su-In Lee
    bioRxiv, 2023
  5. Commun. Med.
    Interpretable machine learning prediction of all-cause mortality
    Wei Qiu, Hugh Chen, Ayse Berceste Dincer, Scott Lundberg, and 2 more authors
    Communications Medicine, 2022