Jinying Chen

Jinying Chen, PhD is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Population and Quantitative Health Sciences at UMass Chan Medical School, specifically within the Division of Health Informatics and Implementation Science. She is affiliated with the T.H. Chan School of Medicine and contributes to the UMass Cancer Center's research initiatives.

Her educational background includes:

• BS in Computer Science & Technology from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
• ME in Computer Science & Technology from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
• MS in Computer & Information Science from University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA
• PhD in Computer & Information Science from University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA
• Postdoctoral training in Health Informatics and Implementation Science from University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA, USA

Dr. Chen's research focuses on applying information technologies, particularly natural language processing and machine learning, to healthcare problems. Her work spans several key areas including electronic health record analysis, cancer prevention and care, smoking cessation interventions, and predictive modeling for patient outcomes. She develops methods to extract meaningful information from clinical notes, identify important medical terms for patients, and create systems that improve patient understanding of their health information. Her research has significant implications for improving healthcare delivery, patient engagement, and clinical decision support systems.

Dr. Chen's publication history reveals a strategic evolution from foundational computational linguistics research toward increasingly healthcare-focused applications. Her recent work (2019-2021) emphasizes patient-centered NLP applications in electronic health records, with particular focus on understanding patient-reported outcomes, pain management, and chronic disease care. She has developed innovative approaches for medical term ranking, hypoglycemia detection from patient messages, and linking medical terminology to lay definitions, demonstrating both technical expertise and clinical relevance.

She maintains active collaborations with prominent researchers including Thomas Houston, Rajani Sadasivam, and David McManus, with publications appearing in high-impact journals such as Journal of Medical Internet Research and BMC Health Services Research. Her research bridges the gap between advanced computational techniques and real-world healthcare challenges, with particular emphasis on making health information more accessible and actionable for patients and providers.