Research Summary

Dr. Hong is the Head of AI at the UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, Medical Director of Radiation Oncology Informatics, and Associate Professor and in the Department of Radiation Oncology, Division of Clinical Informatics and Digital Transformation (DoC-IT), and Bakar Computational Health Sciences Institute at the University of California, San Francisco, and in the UCSF-UC Berkeley Joint Program in Computational Precision Health. Clinically, he specializes in the treatment of genitourinary malignancies.

Dr. Hong is a physician-scientist whose NIH-funded computational research lab focuses on the development and implementation of computational tools in the clinic to provide personalized, precision cancer care for patients. His group combines clinical domain knowledge with data science expertise to generate insights from real world data, develop actionable artificial intelligence-based tools, and implement and evaluate the benefit of these advances in patient care. He led one of the first randomized controlled studies of healthcare machine learning, developing an electronic health record-based algorithm that accurately directed care to reduce emergency visits and hospitalizations during radiotherapy.

Dr. Hong received his B.S. in Biomedical Computation and M.S. in Bioengineering from Stanford University. He completed his M.D. at the University of Wisconsin and residency in radiation oncology at Duke University, where he served as Chief Resident. Dr. Hong is board certified in both radiation oncology and clinical informatics.

On a national level, Dr. Hong serves on the NRG Oncology Cancer Prevention and Control Committee, American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Cancer Communications Committee and AI Community of Practice Steering Committee, American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) Scientific Review Panel, Radiation Oncology Institute Research Committee, and American Medical Informatics Association Scientific Program Committee. His work has been funded by the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health, Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute, ASCO Conquer Cancer Foundation, ASTRO, Prostate Cancer Foundation, and the American Cancer Society.

Dr. Hong’s research has been published in high-impact, peer-reviewed journals across both medicine and computational sciences, such as the Journal of Clinical Oncology, JAMA Oncology, the New England Journal of Medicine AI, Lancet Digital Health, and the International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML). His work has been recognized with the Radiation Oncology Institute (ROI) Publication Award, Bio-IT World Innovative Practices Award, and the Symposium on Artificial Intelligence for Learning Health Systems New England Journal of Medicine Travel Award. He finished third in a pool of 934 teams in the 2018 Google Cloud Kaggle NCAA March Madness Learning Competition. He was named a fellow of the American Medical Informatics Association (FAMIA) in 2026.

Research Funding

  • March 1, 2023 - February 29, 2028 - Multi-institutional validation of a multi-modal machine learning algorithm to predict and reduce acute care during cancer therapy , Principal Investigator . Sponsor: NIH, Sponsor Award ID: R01CA277782
  • March 1, 2023 - February 29, 2028 - Multi-institutional validation of a multi-modal machine learning algorithm to predict and reduce acute care during cancer therapy , unknown . Sponsor: NIH/NCI, Sponsor Award ID: R01CA277782
  • March 1, 2023 - March 25, 2027 - Diagnostic tools for quality improvement of machine learning-based clinical decision support systems , unknown . Sponsor: Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), Sponsor Award ID: Improving Methods for Conducting Patient-Centered
  • September 6, 2022 - September 5, 2024 - Advancing the Drug Development Process in Metastatic Prostate Cancer through Machine Learning , unknown . Sponsor: Prostate Cancer Foundation, Sponsor Award ID: 22CHAS02
  • July 1, 2021 - June 30, 2024 - Artificial intelligence approaches for the diagnosis and treatment of oligometastatic prostate cancer , Principal Investigator . Sponsor: ASTRO-PCF, Sponsor Award ID: Career Development Award to End Prostate Cancer
  • July 1, 2021 - June 30, 2024 - Accessible and equitable computational approaches to reduce acute care for cancer patients , Principal Investigator . Sponsor: Conquer Cancer, Sponsor Award ID: Career Development Grant
  • September 1, 2021 - February 28, 2023 - Artificial intelligence approaches to reduce disparities in supportive care during cancer therapy , Principal Investigator . Sponsor: UCSF, Sponsor Award ID: Computational Cancer Award
  • July 1, 2020 - June 30, 2022 - Reducing preventable ED visits and hospitalizations in patients with cancer , Principal Investigator . Sponsor: UCSF, Sponsor Award ID: Precision Medicine Cancer Building Award
  • February 1, 2020 - January 31, 2021 - Enhanced prostate cancer diagnostics: Intelligent algorithms to improve patient , Principal Investigator . Sponsor: American Cancer Society, Sponsor Award ID: IRG-17-180-19

Education

Stanford University, Stanford, CA, BS, 06/2008, Biomedical Computation
Stanford University, Stanford, CA, MS, 06/2009, Bioengineering
University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, MD, 05/2014, Medicine
Yale-New Haven Medical Center, New Haven/Waterbury, CT, Internship, 06/2015, Internal Medicine
Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC, Residency, 06/2019, Radiation Oncology

Honors & Awards

  • 2021
    Bio-IT World Conference & Expo Innovative Practices Award, Cambridge Healthtech Institute
  • 2021
    Publication Award, Radiation Oncology Institute
  • 2021
    Annual Symposium Distinguished Poster, American Medical Informatics Association
  • 2020
    New England Journal of Medicine Travel Scholarship, Symposium on Artificial Intelligence for Learning Health Systems
  • 2018
    3rd Place, Google Kaggle NCAA March Madness Machine Learning Competition
  • 2014
    Dylan Cappel Memorial Scholarship in Oncology, University of Wisconsin
  • 2012
    Herman and Gwendolyn Shapiro Excellence in Student Research Award, University of Wisconsin
  • 2011
    Excellence in Radiology Research Award, National Student Research Forum
  • 2009
    Excellence in Science Award, American Association for the Advancement of Science

Selected Publications

  1. Han-Jay Shu, Venkatesh Sivaraman, Siyu Zhou, Jean Feng, Julian C. Hong. Subgroup-Dependent Report-Label Noise Distorts Fairness Audits of Chest X-ray Classifiers: A Prediction-Powered Correction. MICCAI 2026 Workshop UNSURE. 2026. View on PubMed
  2. Balas J, Bowling L, Shakhnazaryan N, Aggarwal RR, Borno HT, Hong JC, Huang FW, Tong B, Kwon DH. Evaluation of an Artificial Intelligence Communication Platform for Racial Biases in Pretest Education About Prostate Cancer Germline Testing. JCO Clin Cancer Inform. 2026 Jul-Sep; 10(3):e2500385. View on PubMed
  3. Benson R, Rajkumar S, Kenny C, Zhao M, Chang JH, Scheel T, Boreta L, Hong JC. Computational identification of salient cancer care topics and themes in oncology social work notes. JNCI Cancer Spectr. 2026 Jul 07; 10(4). View on PubMed
  4. Leng JX, Arshad M, Carpenter DJ, Qazi J, Huang C, Serra L, Vaios E, Reitman ZJ, Floyd SR, Kirkpatrick JP, Fecci PE, Chmura SJ, Hong JC, Sperduto PW, Salama JK, Mullikin TC. Impact of Radionecrosis and Local Recurrence on Overall Survival After Stereotactic Radiosurgery for Brain Metastases. Adv Radiat Oncol. 2026 Nov; 11(11):102098. View on PubMed
  5. Song H, Xu J, Velazquez-Arcelay K, Demirci A, Raizenne BL, Hsu SC, Choi J, Pham JH, Chen YA, Weinstein HNW, Salzman I, Tsui M, Akutagawa J, Adingo W, Goldschmidt E, Carroll PR, Hong JC, Heaphy CM, Cooperberg MR, Greenland N, Campbell JD, Huang FW. Defining the combinatorial nature of gene modules in prostate cancer underlying lineage plasticity and metastasis. Res Sq. 2026 May 11. View on PubMed
  6. Thaker NG, Liu W, Waddle M, Showalter T, Mastroleo F, Luh J, Levitt C, Ning M, Loaiza-Bonilla A, Hong J. Retrieval-Augmented Generation in Oncology: Promises, Pitfalls, and Early Applications. AI Precis Oncol. 2026 Apr-Jun; 3(2-3):34-45. View on PubMed
  7. Venkatesh Sivaraman, Patrick Vossler, Adam Perer, Julian Hong, Jean Feng. More Than "Means to an End": Supporting Reasoning with Transparently Designed AI Data Science Processes. Workshop on Tools for Thought at CHI'26: Understanding, Protecting, and Augmenting Human Cognition with Generative AI - From Vision to Implementation. 2026. View on PubMed
  8. Kenny C, Elia M, Feng J, Friesner ID, Liu B, Sears C, Johnson J, Shwan B, Luan H, Ohri N, Braunstein S, Boreta L, Seyedin S, Yoshida E, Chen W, Feng M, Chan J, Hong J. TIP26-318: Protocol for Wearable AI Tracking to Curb Hospitalizations (WATCH). J Natl Compr Canc Netw. 2026 Mar 31; 24(3.5). View on PubMed
  9. Song H, Xu J, Velazquez-Arcelay K, Demirci A, Raizenne BL, Hsu SC, Choi J, Pham JH, Chen YA, Weinstein HNW, Salzman I, Tsui M, Akutagawa J, Adingo W, Goldschmidt E, Carroll PR, Hong JC, Heaphy CM, Cooperberg MR, Greenland N, Campbell JD, Huang FW. A single-cell and spatial atlas of prostate cancer reveals the combinatorial nature of gene modules underlying lineage plasticity and metastasis. bioRxiv. 2026 Mar 27. View on PubMed
  10. Chen JJ, Feng J, Friesner ID, Chang C, Kenny C, Elia MV, Ni L, Feng FY, Rabow MW, Braunstein SE, Boreta LC, Hong JC. Natural language processing to identify documented pain preceding radiation therapy for bone metastases. JNCI Cancer Spectr. 2026 Mar 03; 10(2). View on PubMed
  11. Ganjouei AA, Zack T, Friesner I, Chen WC, Boreta L, Braunstein SE, Rabow MW, Garcia ME, Hong JC. Association of mental health disorders and all-cause mortality for patients with cancer: Large-scale analysis of University of California Health System Data. Cancer. 2026 Mar 01; 132(5):e70254. View on PubMed
  12. Raizenne BL, Koshkin VS, Zhu A, Ben-David R, Dufault SM, Eraky A, Friedlander TW, Hong JC, Wong AC, Chou J, Chu C, Mar N, Ma TM, Sfakianos JP, Porten S, Seyedin SN. Prognostic Utility of ctDNA for Trimodality Therapy Outcomes in Muscle Invasive Bladder Cancer. Clin Genitourin Cancer. 2026 Jun; 24(4):102524. View on PubMed
  13. Chen LC, Zack T, Mandair D, Mahadevan A, Suresh A, Ishiyama Y, Li Y, Hong JC, Butte AJ. From Zero-Shot to Bedside: A Practical Playbook for Adapting Open-Source Large Language Models to Clinical Symptom Extraction. Proc Mach Learn Res. 2026; 297:1023-1046. View on PubMed
  14. ct
    Chen L, Zack T, Mandair D, Mahadevan A, Suresh A, Ishiyama Y, Li Y, Hong JC. From Zero-Shot to Bedside: A Practical Playbook for Adapting Open-Source Large Language Models to Clinical Symptom Extraction. Machine Learning for Health (ML4H). 2025. View on PubMed
  15. Qian AS, Kotha NV, Porter E, Ni L, Phuong C, Mohebi F, Sabol RA, Chen JJ, Bagshaw HP, Hong JC, Braunstein S. The Impact of Artificial Intelligence Auto-Contouring on Resident Education. Pract Radiat Oncol. 2026 May-Jun; 16(3):e167-e172. View on PubMed
  16. Chen WS, Tuchayi AM, Sabbagh A, Kim I, Porter E, Ashraf-Ganjouei A, Li YR, Witztum A, Rajagopal A, Seyedin SN, Juarez R, Carroll PR, Feng FY, Small EJ, Hope TA, Hong JC. Utility of metastasis-directed radiotherapy with and without hormonal therapy in management of oligometastatic prostate cancer. JNCI Cancer Spectr. 2025 Nov 03; 9(6). View on PubMed
  17. Benson R, Kenny C, Ashraf Ganjouei A, Zhao M, Darawsheh R, Qian A, Hong JC. Large Language Models in Population Oncology: A Contemporary Review on the Use of Large Language Models to Support Data Collection, Aggregation, and Analysis in Cancer Care and Research. JCO Clin Cancer Inform. 2025 Oct; 9:e2500112. View on PubMed
  18. Chang JH, Ashraf-Ganjouei A, Friesner I, Benson R, Zack T, Sinha S, Chan J, Braunstein S, Lin A, Singer L, Hong JC. Unsupervised Large Language Models to Identify Topics in Cancer Center Patient Portal Messages. JCO Clin Cancer Inform. 2025 10; 9:e2500102. View on PubMed
  19. Kouzy R, Hong JC, Bitterman DS. One shot at trust: building credible evidence for medical artificial intelligence. Lancet Digit Health. 2025 Jul; 7(7):100883. View on PubMed
  20. Poel R, Rüfenacht E, Scheib S, Hemmatazad H, Krcek R, Tran S, Romano E, Rogers S, Stieb S, Poolakundan MR, Al-Abdulla HH, Foerster R, Schröder C, Oehler C, Hong J, Breedveld S, Andratschke N, Manser P, Fix MK, Aebersold DM, Reyes M, Ermis E. A comprehensive multifaceted technical evaluation framework for implementation of auto-segmentation models in radiotherapy. Commun Med (Lond). 2025 Jul 31; 5(1):319. View on PubMed

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