John Pestian

John Pestian is a Professor-Affiliate at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center. He holds a PhD from Virginia Commonwealth University (1994) and an MBA. His research focuses on applying machine learning and natural language processing (NLP) to healthcare challenges, particularly in mental health and pediatric medicine. Key areas include suicide risk assessment, epilepsy diagnosis, and asthma treatment efficacy. He has collaborated on multicenter trials and developed NLP tools for analyzing clinical data.

Education:

• Bachelor's Degree: St. Francis College (1981)
• Master's Degree: University of Steubenville (1987)
• Doctoral Degree: Virginia Commonwealth University (1994)

Research Interests: Dr. Pestian integrates computational methods with clinical data to address unmet needs in healthcare. His work spans suicide prevention through language analysis, pediatric epilepsy prediction via machine learning, and asthma drug efficacy evaluation. He emphasizes translational research to bridge computational innovation and clinical practice.

Publications: His recent work includes studies on suicide note sentiment analysis, pediatric epilepsy surgery prediction, and asthma treatment outcomes. These publications highlight his focus on NLP-driven insights for clinical decision-making.

Grants & Collaborations: He leads collaborative projects involving multidisciplinary teams, including institutions like the STM Research Group. His research is funded through grants supporting computational healthcare solutions.

Labs/Teams: Engaged in research groups at Cincinnati Children's Hospital, focusing on computational psychiatry and precision medicine.