Dr. Jiayu Yao is a Postdoctoral Research Scientist in the Data Science Institute, where she is part of the 7th cohort of the DSI Postdoctoral Research Scientist Fellows Program. Her current research focuses on developing new clinically relevant offline reinforcement learning algorithms, under the guidance of Professor Shamali Joshi and Dr. Soojin Park.
Prior to joining Columbia University in September 2024, Dr. Yao was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Gladstone Institute and Stanford University. There, she specialized in advancing reinforcement learning applications in healthcare, working under the supervision of Professor Barbara Engelhardt.
Dr. Yao earned her Ph.D. in Computer Science from Harvard University in 2023 and holds a B.Sc. in Applied Mathematics and Computer Science from Emory University.