Cathy Shyr, PhD

Cathy Shyr, PhD is an assistant professor of biomedical informatics, pediatrics, and biostatistics at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. She is a statistical informatician specializing in machine learning, AI and methods for estimating personalized treatment effects. Her research focuses on the development and implementation of novel statistical machine learning (ML) and AI methods to advance precision medicine and accelerate diagnosis.

Dr. Shyr has developed methods aimed at improving the generalizability of statistical ML and causal inference models across multiple datasets for estimating personalized risks and treatment effects. She is an active member in the All of Us Research Program’s Data and Research Center and the Recruitment Innovation Center, where she leads the development of AI tools supporting the return of study results. In addition, she has developed and implemented large language models that leverage unstructured electronic health records data for diagnosing rare diseases at the Vanderbilt Undiagnosed Diseases Network. She is the recipient of the National Library of Medicine’s K99/R00 award for her proposal, “Development and Implementation of Statistical Machine Learning Methods to Shorten Rare Disease Odysseys.”

Dr. Shyr earned her PhD in Biostatistics at Harvard University and completed her postdoctoral training in Biomedical Informatics at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.