Role: Co-PI

Period: 10/2023 - 10/2025

Funding

Using Machine Learning and Data Analytics Frameworks to
Estimate Medication Use for Managing Challenging Behavior
in Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders in Texas

Role: PI

Period: 10/2024 - 09/2026

This study aims to investigate the utilization and effectiveness of ad-hoc
pharmacological interventions for managing challenging behavior in Texas.
Leveraging longitudinal prescription data, we will analyze patterns of medication
usage, particularly focusing on three categories: agitation and self-injurious behavior
mitigation, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)-like symptoms
management, and mood and anxiety disorder treatment

Funding

Team:

• Dr. Yanmin Gong, Associate professor and Microsoft President’s Endowed Fellow in the Department of Electrical and Computer
  Engineering at The University of Texas at San Antonio
• Dr. Yuanxiong Guo, Associate professor in the Department of Information Systems and Cyber Security, Department of Electrical and
  Computer Engineering, and School of Data Science at The University of Texas at San Antonio
• Dr. Cici X.C. Bauer Associate Professor James W. Rockwell Professorship in Public Health (Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology)
  Department of Biostatistics and Data Science Director, Center for Spatial-temporal Modeling for Applications in Population Sciences
  (CSMAPS) University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston (UTHealth) School of Public Health
• Dr. Carolina Vivas-Valencia, Assistant professor in the Department of Biomedical and Chemical Engineering at the University of
  Texas at San Antonio

Team:

• Dr. Leslie Neely, Associate Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Texas at San Antonio
• Dr. Carolina Vivas-Valencia, Assistant professor in the Department of Biomedical and Chemical Engineering at the University of
  Texas at San Antonio

Lola Carantanta

Millie Milonga

Alumni – Previous Members

Belem Suarez - The University of Texas at San Antonio, 2023-2024

Isabel Castrillon Acosta - Universidad CES (Medellin, Colombia), Spring 2024

Vaibhavi Sunkara - The University of Texas at San Antonio, 2023-2024

Avery Scurlock - The University of Texas at San Antonio, Fall 2023

Crystal is a student in the bachelor's program in mechanical engineering at UTSA. She
currently serves as the Treasurer for the Society of Women Engineers, where she combines
her academic pursuits with leadership in promoting women in STEM fields. Crystal is also
deeply committed to her personal journey of long-term recovery from drugs and alcohol,
marking August 4, 2020, as her sobriety birthdate. She actively contributes to UTSA's
Roadrunner Recovery program as a work-study student, embodying her dedication to
fostering a supportive collegiate environment. Crystal aspires to merge her engineering skills
with her passion for community support, aiming to make a lasting impact in both fields.

Pronouns: She/her

Hometown: Houston, TX

Hobbies: Dancing, exercising, learning new skills, and hanging out with her 11-year-old son

Email: crystal.holland@my.utsa.edu

Crystal Holland

Assistant Professor

Postdoctoral Fellowship, Harvard University

Ph.D. and M.S. in Biomedical Engineering, Purdue University

B.S. in Biomedical Engineering, Universidad CES & Universidad EIA, Medellin, Colombia

Pronouns: She/Her/Ella

Hometown: Popayán, Colombia

Paula A. Jaimes Buitron

Sai is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Texas at San
Antonio and UT Health San Antonio joint graduate program. He completed his B.S. in
Biomedical Engineering at UTSA in Spring 2024. Before joining the HEAl Lab, Sai served as an
undergraduate research assistant at the ReMeDi Lab under Dr. Teja Guda at UTSA.
Additionally, he served as the president of the Klesse Student Advisory Council and was a
member/mentor in the UTSA Biomedical Engineering Society.

Pronouns: He/Him

Hometown: Rajahmundry,India

Goals: I want utilize my knowledge, skills and abilities gained in my academic journey to
create a equitable and fair health care system.

Hobbies: Traveling, soccer, and writing fictional sci-fi books.

Email: trilochan.tadi@my.utsa.edu

Trilochan (SAI) Tadi

Postdoctoral Fellows

Dr. Sara Abu-Aridah is Postdoctoral Fellow in The Mechanical, Aerospace and Industrial
Engineering Department at UTSA. She holds a Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering from Penn
State University. Her research focuses on operations research for social good and healthcare
analytics, addressing public health disparities and optimizing resource allocation.

Pronouns: She/Her

Hometown: Irbid, Jordan

Goals: Increase access to healthcare services for our communities and serve them with
sustainable solutions for their well-being.

Hobbies: Anything with my family, Learning, Traveling, Hiking, Cooking with my two
daughters.

Email: sara.abu-aridah@utsa.edu

Sara Abu-Aridah

• Hosseini, Mohammad, Peng Gao, and Carolina Vivas-Valencia. "A Social-Environmental Impact Perspective of
  Generative Artificial Intelligence." Environmental Science and Ecotechnology (2024): 100520.

• Vivas-Valencia, Carolina, et al. "Factors Associated With Abrupt Discontinuation of Long-Term High-Dose Opioid
  Treatment." JAMA Network Open 6.11 (2023): e2341416-e2341416.

• Vivas-Valencia, Carolina, et al. "Assessing the Impact of Indiana Public Law 194 on Curbing the Concurrent Opioid
  Prescribing for Indiana Medicaid Enrollees." Substance Abuse: Research and Treatment 17 (2023):
  11782218231168722.

• Vivas-Valencia, C., Kong., Adams, N., Griffin, P. (2023) Opioid-Related Treatment Disparities Among Medicaid Enrollees
  in Indiana. Health Equity, 7.1

• Vivas-Valencia, C., Zhou, Y., Sai, A., Imperiale, T. F., & Kong, N. (2022). A two-phase approach to re-calibrating expensive
  computer simulation for sex-specific colorectal neoplasia development modeling. BMC Medical Informatics and
  Decision Making, 22(1), 244.

• Lou, Zhouyang, et al. "Examining how physician factors influence patient satisfaction during clinical consultations
  about cancer prognosis and pain." PEC Innovation 1 (2022): 100017.

• Vivas-Valencia, C., Kong, N., & Griffin, P. (2021, May). Quantifying Disparities in Opioid Treatment Among Medicaid
  Enrollees. In 42nd Annual Meeting of the Society for Medical Decision Making. SMDM.

• Vivas-Valencia, C., Kong, N., Kim, E., Purzer, S., & Payne, L. (2020, June). An assessment instrument for user-centered
  innovation potential among biomedical engineers. In 2020 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Montréal, Quebec.

• Best Paper of the Design in Engineering Education Division
  • Kim, E., Purzer, S., Vivas-Valencia, C., Payne, L., & Kong, N. (2020, June). Problem reframing and empathy
    manifestation in the innovation process. In 2020 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Montréal, Quebec,
    Canada.

• Kong, N., Purzer, S., Payne, L., Kim, E., & Vivas-Valencia, C. (2020, June). Research Initiation: Enhancing the Learning
  Outcomes of Empathic Innovation in Biomedical Engineering Senior Design Projects. In 2020 ASEE Annual Conference
  & Exposition, Montréal, Quebec, Canada.

• Sai, A., Vivas-Valencia, C., Imperiale, T. F., & Kong, N. (2019). Multiobjective calibration of disease simulation models
  using Gaussian processes. Medical Decision Making, 39(5), 540-552.

• Hunter, S. R., Applegate, E. A., Arora, V., Chong, B., Cooper, K., Rincón-Guevara, O., & Vivas-Valencia, C. (2019). An
  introduction to multiobjective simulation optimization. ACM Transactions on Modeling and Computer Simulation
  (TOMACS), 29(1), 1-36.

• Lee B. Lusted Finalist
  • Vivas-Valencia, C., Sai, A., Imperiale, T., & Kong, N. (2017, October). An Effective Two-Phase Response Surface Based
    Disease Model Calibration Procedure with a Case Study on Colorectal Cancer. In 39th Annual Meeting of the
    Society for Medical Decision Making. SMDM.

• Mdluli, T., Sarker, J., Vivas-Valencia, C., Kong, N., & Shields, C. G. (2016). Analyzing Patient–Physician Interaction in
  Consultation for Shared Decision Making. Healthcare Analytics, 503.

• Top Ranked Abstract Session
  • Vivas-Valencia, C. V., Kong, N., Klein, R., Tham, W.K., & Imperiale, T., & Kong, N. (2014, October). A Progressive
    Calibration Procedure for Individualized Colorectal Cancer Screening Study. In 36th Annual Meeting of the Society
    for Medical Decision Making. SMDM.

in the press

Lab news

July 2024 - Discover more about our lab and the exciting
work being done at MATRIX AI
https://issuu.com/utsanantonio/docs/matrix-
annualreport_2022-2023

December 2023 - UTSA professors work to close opioid
treatment gaps with help of $1 million grant. Read the full
story here: https://klesse.utsa.edu/news/2023/12/13-opioid-
treatment-grant.html

November 2023 - Our latest publication on JAMA Open
Network was highlighted in "Alcoholism Drug Abuse Weekly."
Read the full story here:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/15567591/2023/35/44

August 2023 - Dr. Vivas-Valencia was recently featured in the
newsletter "Brain Waves.". Read the full story here:
https://www.utsa.edu/bhc/BHC-Newletter-FA-2023.pdf

October 2024

*Congratulations to Crystal for being selected by the Minorities Issues Forum to attend the
INFORMS Annual Meeting in Seattle.

September 2024

*Congratulations to Crystal for being awarded the Klesse College Undergraduate Research
Scholarship for the Fall 2024 term

August 2024

*Sai joins the HEAL LAB! Welcome

July 2024

*Our team has been awarded the Transdisciplinary Teams Program (T2) seed grant to
support our research in autism.

April 2024

*Paula got a full scholarship to attend the DAIR3 program at the University of Michigan in
June. The program is supported by NIH and focuses on ethical data management, AI model
design, and reproducibility. We are extremely proud of Paula's big accomplishment during
her first year as a PhD student!

*Congratulations to Brandon, Jack, Luis, Sai and Zack for winning the BMES and Tech
Symposium with their senior design project which aimed at detecting diabetic retinopathy
using artificial intelligence. It was an incredible experience to be their mentor and witness all
the great things they accomplished!

March 2024

*There was great representation and participation from the HEAL Lab at the NSF Spring
School. The event focused on Neuro-Inspired AI, Federated Learning, and Continual
Learning for the Edge.

*During the BME research symposium at UTSA, Paula showcased her work from the first
year at the HEAL Lab. Congratulations to Paula, and we look forward to seeing more from
her!

*Dr. Vivas-Valencia was invited to participate in the HSRU NSF writing workshop! It was
wonderful to meet inspiring faculty from Hispanic Serving Institutions.

February 2024 - Thanks to MATRIX AI for sponsoring Dr. Vivas-Valencia's attendance at the
TAMEST conference in Austin.

January 2024

*We are excited to welcome our first visiting student researcher, Isabel, to the HEAL Lab!

*Vaibhavi and Belem have been awarded the Klesse College Undergraduate Research
Scholarship for the Spring 2024 term. CONGRATULATIONS!!

November 2023

*New publication on “Factors Associated With Abrupt Discontinuation of Long-Term High-
Dose Opioid Treatment”

*Vaibhavi has been accepted into the Pathways to Education Research Training Program.
CONGRATULATIONS!!

October 2023

*Dr. Vivas-Valencia has been invited to speak at the INFORMS Annual Meeting in Phoenix

*Our research on optimal placement of point-of-care devices won the best oral presentation
award at the Zimbabwe National AIDS Council Research Symposium. Congratulations to the
amazing team!

September 2023

*First grant for the HEAL Lab!! Our team has received the NIH AIM-AHEAD Award!

*Belem has been awarded the Klesse College Undergraduate Research Scholarship for the
Fall 2023 term. CONGRATULATIONS!!

August 2023

*As part of the CAREER MODE program, Dr. Vivas-Valencia attended the Mendelian
Randomization Bootcamp at Columbia University in New York.

*Belem, Vaibhavi, and Avery have joined the HEAL Lab! WELCOME!!

July 2023 - Dr. Vivas-Valencia chaired a session and gave a talk at INFORMS Healthcare in
Toronto.

June 2023 - Paula joins the HEAL Lab!!! WELCOME

April 2023

*New publication on “Assessing the Impact of Indiana Public Law 194 on Curbing the
Concurrent Opioid Prescribing for Indiana Medicaid Enrollees”

*Dr. Vivas-Valencia has become a core member of MATRIX AI and a member of the Brain
Health Consortium at UTSA.

March 2023

*Dr. Vivas-Valencia has been selected for Columbia University's prestigious CAREER MODE
program.

*Dr. Vivas-Valencia has been invited to present a seminar at STRECH hosted by UTHealth
San Antonio.

*Dr. Vivas-Valencia has been invited to make a presentation at the RegenMed conference.

February 2023 - New publication on “Opioid-Related Treatment Disparities Among Medicaid
Enrollees in Indiana”

January 2023 - The HEAL LAB at UTSA opens!!

September 2024

INFORMS Committee at Phoenix

September 2023

Paula’s Birthday

Winners of the BMES and Tech symposium

Senior Design project: detecting diabetic retinopathy using artificial intelligence

March - April 2024

end of the semester celebration

June 2024

END OF THE SEMESTER CELEBRATION

December 2024

#Healthcare #disparities #opioidcrisis #infectiousdisease

#WOMENSHEALTH

#timemanagement #grit #habits #mentoring #lifebalance