Albert Montillo

Albert Montillo is an Associate Professor in the Lyda Hill Departments of Bioinformatics and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center (UTSW), with an adjunct appointment in Computer Science and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Texas at Dallas. He is also an Investigator at the O’Donnell Brain Institute. His research lies at the intersection of medical image analysis, machine learning, and biomedical informatics, with a focus on developing trustworthy AI for healthcare and life sciences.

Education:

• Ph.D. in Medical Image Analysis and Computer Science, University of Pennsylvania
• M.S. in Computer and Information Science, University of Pennsylvania
• B.S. in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, and Cognitive Neuroscience, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI)

Research Interests:
Dr. Montillo’s lab develops AI methodologies to address key challenges in healthcare, including trustworthy and explainable AI, multimodal data fusion, causal analysis, and sample-efficient learning. His work spans clinical applications in oncology (breast and head/neck cancer) and neurological disorders (Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, autism, epilepsy, depression), as well as computational neuroscience and neuroinformatics. He emphasizes the development of models that are generalizable, interpretable, and equitable across populations.

Publication Trends:
His recent publications demonstrate a strong focus on applying deep learning to neuroimaging and clinical data for disease prediction and biomarker discovery. Key themes include causal connectivity in Parkinson’s disease, multimodal fusion for treatment response in depression, artifact suppression in MEG/fMRI, and machine learning for early diagnosis of Alzheimer’s and autism. His work often integrates fMRI, MEG, genomics, and electronic health records using advanced neural architectures.

Scientific Awards and Recognition:

• FDA approval for a brain parcellation algorithm developed at Harvard/MIT Martinos Center
• FDA approval for a deep learning decision forest variant from Microsoft Research
• Multiple US patents in brain imaging, lesion quantification, and machine vision

Mentoring and Grants:
Dr. Montillo actively mentors postdoctoral fellows, PhD students, and MD/PhD trainees across UTSW, UT Dallas, UT Arlington, and SMU. His lab is supported by active grants from federal agencies (e.g., NIH), industry sponsors, and institutional funding. He leads a department-wide Causality Journal Club and fosters collaborations across neurology, psychiatry, radiology, and neuroscience.

Labs and Teams:
He leads the Deep Learning for Precision Health Lab, which is closely aligned with the O’Donnell Brain Institute and participates in multiple academic programs including Biomedical Engineering, Computational Biology, Medical Physics, and Neuroscience. The lab develops clinical AI tools and foundational methodologies with strong translational impact.