Members
Principle Investigator
Hongru Du, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Systems & Information Engineering at the University of Virginia, leads the Du Lab. He received his Ph.D. in Systems Engineering from Johns Hopkins University. His research develops AI and computational methods for modeling human behavior, population health, infectious disease dynamics, and public health decision-making.
Graduate Students
Runzhou Liu
Runzhou Liu is a PhD student in Systems Engineering at the University of Virginia. His research interests lie in multimodal machine learning, large language models, and their intersection with public health applications, with a focus on developing data-driven methods that integrate diverse information sources to support health-related modeling and decision-making. He holds an MS in Data Science from Columbia University and completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Rochester.
Alex Langevin
Alex Langevin is a PhD student in Systems Engineering at the University of Virginia with interests in machine learning and statistical modeling. His research interests include density ratio estimation, with a focus on understanding distribution shift and building more robust predictive methods. He holds an M.S. degree in Computational Mathematics from Duquesne University.
Yuchen Qin
Yuchen Qin is a Master’s student in Systems Engineering at the University of Virginia. His research interests lie in applied mathematics and data-driven methods for solving complex system-level problems. He holds a B.S. degree in Computer Science from the University of Science and Technology of China.
Haoyang is a PhD student in Systems Engineering at the University of Virginia. Haoyang is passionate about exploring the convergence of social science and AI in the era of big data and intelligent technologies. He is particularly interested in how these sociological theories-guided LLM agents can enable novel insights into social simulations and complex societal dynamics that both traditional data-driven machine learning and social science research cannot achieve. Haoyang holds a BSSC degree from Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU), majoring in Sociology with a minor in Computer Science.
Xueyi Zhang
Xueyi Zhang is a master’s student in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Virginia. His research interests include machine learning, large language models, and agentic AI, with a focus on their applications in public health. He holds a B.Eng. degree in Mechatronics Engineering from Shanghai Maritime University.
Undergraduate Students
Anirudh Manikandan
Anirudh Manikandan is a first-year student from Ashburn, Virginia, pursuing a double major in Economics and Statistics, with an emerging specialization in data science and large language model development. In his free time, he enjoys watching sports, particularly football and basketball.
Thomas Wiktorowicz
Thomas Wiktorowicz is a second-year undergraduate student at the University of Virginia, majoring in Systems Engineering and Data Science, with a strong interest in machine learning, predictive modeling, and data-driven decision-making under uncertainty. His esearch interests center on epidemiological forecasting, where he aims to improve real-time forecasting by developing an LLM-enhanced time-series pipeline that integrates historical surveillance data with multimodal signals.
Ayesha Habib
Ayesha Habib is a second-year undergraduate student at the University of Virginia, majoring in Systems Engineering and Data Science with interests at the intersection of machine learning, large language models, and public health. Her research interests focus on developing data-driven methods to support health-related modeling and decision-making.
Patrick Hamilton
Patrick Hamilton is a first-year undergraduate student from Richmond, VA, planning to major in Systems Engineering and Economics and interested in the intersection of public policy, risk management, and disease forecasting. Research interests have included mathematical modeling of mucociliary clearance during pulmonary disease and a game-theoretic approach to disease public policy in the Greater Richmond Area.
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