I'm a Health Data Science Ph.D. student at UT Southwestern Medical Center. I'm currently doing research at the Xiao Lab working on shape analysis of histopathological images and tumor cell segmentation, detection, and classification. I previously did my MS/BS in Math/Data Science at UT Dallas where I was fortunate to be advised by Prof. Baris Coskunuzer.
My research interests lie in the intersection of computer vision techniques, machine learning algorithms, medical image analysis, and topological deep learning. More broadly speaking, I am interested in creating and applying ML methods to medical image analysis (segmentation, classification, reconstruction).
In my free time I enjoy playing video games and traveling. Some games I was top rated in are: League of Legends (Grandmaster), Counter-Strike (FACEIT Level 10), and Hearthstone (Rank 1).
Education
UT Southwestern Medical Center
Ph.D. in Health Data Science
The University of Texas at Dallas
M.S. in Mathematics with Concentration in Data Science
Advisor: Prof. Baris Coskunuzer
Thesis: Topological Machine Learning for Medical Image Analysis
The University of Texas at Dallas
B.S. in Data Science
Experience
Graduate Teaching Assistant — UT Southwestern Medical Center
Fall 25 - QDS 5401 - Introduction to Biostatistics and Programming
Graduate Machine Learning Researcher — Topological Machine Learning Group
Advisor: Prof. Baris Coskunuzer
Developed novel deep learning algorithms for biomedical image classification using topological data analysis.
Data Science Capstone — PriceSenz
Developed a Talent Matchmaking Chat Bot using Llama, Retrieval Augmented Generation, and Chain-of-Thought Prompting.
Data Science Intern — Blinkfire Analytics
Helped train and deploy deep learning models to segment and classify objects from videos/images and track sponsor KPIs
Publications
Under Revision 2025
Topology-Enhanced Transformers for Retinal Disease Diagnosis
Philmore Koung, Brighton Nuwagira, Saba Fatema, Baris Coskunuzer
Integrating Topological Data Analysis with Vision Transformers to Improve Retinal Disease Diagnosis Accuracy
MICCAI ISIC (Oral) 2025
Topology-Aware Deep Models for Skin Lesion Classification
Sayoni Chakraborty, Philmore Koung, and Baris Coskunuzer
Combining Topological Deep Learning Embeddings with Vision Transformers to Improve Skin Cancer Detection
Portfolio
Retrieval Augmented Generation AI Agent for Resume and Job Matching
Created an AI Agent using Meta's Llama 2 to match the best resumes to a given job description.
Luxury Watch Dataset
A dataset containing over 280,000 real-world watch listings from chrono24, the world's largest online watch marketplace.
News
March 2025
Research accepted at ASA North Texas Chapter Meeting in Spring 2025
Our work on topological machine learning for computer aided diagnosis has been accepted by ASA North Texas Chapter Meeting in Spring 2025 / DFW Data Science and Statistics Day
February 2025
Research accepted at SIAM CSE 2025
Our work on topological machine learning has been accepted by the SIAM Conference on Computational Science and Engineering 2025, we will be hosting a 2 hour minisymposteria.
October 2024
Abstract accepted at IEEE 2024
Our work on few-shot learning in medical image analysis has been accepted at IEEE-EBMS International Conference on Biomedical and Health Informatics 2024.
September 2024
Paper accepted at ML4H 2024
Our paper on deep learning for biomedical image analysis has been accepted at ML4H 2024.
September 2024
Research accepted at Third Annual Workshop on Imaging and Data Science
I will be presenting my work on machine learning at the Third Annual Workshop on Imaging and Data Science hosted by UT Southwestern Medical Center and UT Dallas
August 2024
Poster accepted at TACCSTER 2024
I will be going to the Texas Advanced Computing Center at UT Austin to present my work on deep learning in medical image analysis.