One PhD position will be available in the Cornell Systems Engineering Program for Fall 2026. The Cornell PhD in Systems Engineering offers a flexible, interdisciplinary environment for developing methodologies and modeling techniques that address complex, multi-disciplinary challenges at the intersection of engineering, business, and the social sciences.
Our laboratory, housed within the Department of Population Health Sciences at Weill Cornell Medicine, develops and applies computational methods for biomedical text and medical imaging data. Our research spans biomedical text mining (e.g., information extraction, text summarization), medical image analysis (e.g., chest X-rays, CT scans, fundus photography), and multimodal approaches that integrate both modalities (e.g., report generation, visual question answering).
Qualifications
We welcome applicants with backgrounds in Computer Science/Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, Bioinformatics, Data Sciences, Health Informatics, or a related discipline. Preference will be given to candidates with expertise in big data or modeling and a strong interest in healthcare or the life sciences. Applicants with solid experience in text mining or medical image analysis are particularly encouraged to apply through Cornell’s graduate admissions portal.
How to Apply
More information about the program and the application process is available at the Systems Engineering website: https://www.engineering.cornell.edu/sys/about/. The application deadline is January 15, 2026.
Yifan Peng is an Associate Professor in the Department of Population Health Sciences at Weill Cornell Medicine and the deputy director of the Cornell Institute of AI and Digital Health. His research focuses on biomedical natural language processing and medical image analysis, with publications in leading AI and healthcare informatics venues. He was elected a Fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics (ACMI) in 2024 and is a member of the graduate field for the Cornell Systems Engineering Program.