Chi Phan

Chi Phan

(she/her)

About me

Hi! I’m Chi, and I am interested in developing multimodal AI systems that can meaningfully improve medical understanding and support clinical decision-making.

My research lies at the intersection of machine learning and medical imaging, with a particular focus on multimodal foundation models, medical reasoning, and trustworthy AI for healthcare. I am especially interested in building clinically grounded and reliable models that can learn from complex medical data while remaining interpretable and useful in real-world settings.

During my research journey, I have been fortunate to work under the guidance of Prof. Yueming Jin at the National University of Singapore, Prof. Lee Hwee Kuan at the Bioinformatics Institute (A*STAR), Prof. Hieu Pham at VinUniversity, and Prof. Ravishankar K. Iyer at the University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign. Feel free to reach out if you would like to chat about medical AI, multimodal learning, or research in general!

Education

Ph.D. Student in Computer Engineering

2025-08-01

National University of Singapore

Bachelor of Computer Science

2021-09-01
2025-06-01

VinUniversity

Research Interests

Medical Image Analysis Multimodal Learning Trustworthy AI for Healthcare
Publications & Projects
Enhancing Pathological VLMs with Cross-scale Reasoning featured image

Enhancing Pathological VLMs with Cross-scale Reasoning

C. Phan , T. Zhang , Q. Xue , Y. Wu , D. Hu , Z. Liu , S. Wang , Y. Jin
International Conference on Medical Image Computing and Computer-Assisted Intervention (MICCAI)
Project Page PDF Code Model
#Vision-Language Models #Reasoning #Pathology
PathScale-R1: Cross-scale Reasoning for Pathological Image Analysis featured image

PathScale-R1: Cross-scale Reasoning for Pathological Image Analysis

C. Phan , T. Zhang , Y. Wu , Q. Xue , L. Cai , Z. Liu , S. Wang , Y. Jin
(Under review)
Project Page PDF Code Model
#Vision-Language Models #Reasoning #Pathology
Never-smoker Under-representation in Training Data Reduces AI Performance for EGFR Mutation Prediction in Singapore Lung Adenocarcinoma Patients featured image

Never-smoker Under-representation in Training Data Reduces AI Performance for EGFR Mutation Prediction in Singapore Lung Adenocarcinoma Patients

C. J. H. Goh , T. Zhang , Y. Liu , C. Phan , et al. , H. K. Lee
(Under review)
#Bias and Fairness #Transformers #Lung Cancer
Clinical Features and Survival Analysis of Osteosarcoma Patients: A Vietnamese Nationwide Retrospective Study featured image

Clinical Features and Survival Analysis of Osteosarcoma Patients: A Vietnamese Nationwide Retrospective Study

C. Phan , Hung Nguyen , Phuong Cao
PDF
#Survival Analysis #Osteosarcoma
TransReg: Cross-transformer as the Auto-registration Module for Multi-view Mammogram Mass Detection featured image

TransReg: Cross-transformer as the Auto-registration Module for Multi-view Mammogram Mass Detection

H. C. Nguyen , C. Phan , H. H. Pham
PDF Code
#Deep Learning #Mammography #Breast Cancer
A Novel Transparency Strategy-based Data Augmentation Approach for BI-RADS Classification of Mammograms featured image

A Novel Transparency Strategy-based Data Augmentation Approach for BI-RADS Classification of Mammograms

S. B. Tran , H. T. X. Nguyen , C. Phan , H. Q. Nguyen , H. H. Pham
IEEE Statistical Signal Processing Workshop
PDF
#Data Augmentation #Classification #Mammography
Exploring Cultural Alignment and Bias in Large Language Model: A Vietnamese Contextual Study featured image

Exploring Cultural Alignment and Bias in Large Language Model: A Vietnamese Contextual Study

C. Phan , Linh Le Dieu
PDF Code
#Bias and Fairness #Large-Language Models

Experience

Research Intern

CVPD Lab, A*STAR Bioinformatics Institute

Conducted experiments and benchmarking for a multi-task and multiple-instance learning framework for lung cancer diagnosis. Enhanced the training pipeline, data preparation, and processing workflow for high-resolution whole slide images.

Research Assistant

VinUni-Illinois Smart Health Center

Collaborated on a computer-aided diagnosis system for breast cancer with a focus on deep learning for mass classification and detection. Performed image analysis, preprocessing, implementation, and evaluation on breast X-ray datasets.

Research Intern

Coordinated Science Lab, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Conducted data analysis on bone cancer datasets to identify prognostic factors affecting disease progression and treatment outcomes. Applied machine learning and statistical modeling for survival analysis and personalized treatment recommendations.

Education

Ph.D. Student in Computer Engineering

National University of Singapore

Bachelor of Computer Science

VinUniversity

Honors & Awards

NUS Research Scholarship

National University of Singapore · 2025

Singapore International Pre-Graduate Award

Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), Singapore · 2024

Dean’s List Honor

College of Engineering and Computer Science, VinUniversity · 2024

Best Research Poster Prize

Computer Science and Engineering Day, VinUniversity · 2022

Merit-based Scholarship for Undergraduate Studies

VinUniversity · 2021

First Prize

Vietnam National Science and Engineering Competition · 2020

Outstanding Project Prize

Vietnam National Youth Innovation · 2020
Blog
Reinforcement Learning

Notes on the Foundations of Reinforcement Learning and LLM Post-Training (Part 1)

Part 1 covers RL fundamentals, policy gradients, REINFORCE, actor-critic methods, TRPO, and PPO.

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Chi Phan
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Reinforcement Learning

Notes on the Foundations of Reinforcement Learning and LLM Post-Training (Part 2)

Part 2 covers RL in the LLM/VLM setting, RLHF, the PPO training pipeline, and GRPO.

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Chi Phan
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