Baraa Al Jorf

Baraa Al Jorf

Advancing Multimodal Machine Learning for Healthcare

About Me

I am a Computer Science PhD researcher at New York University and a Visiting Researcher at the University of Oxford's AI4DH lab. My work lies at the intersection of multimodal machine learning and healthcare, with a strong focus on clinical foundation models. I am passionate about building safe, agentic AI systems that synthesize complex data like clinical notes, medical imaging, and electronic health records to assist in critical tasks like diagnosis and risk prediction. Recently, I also spent a semester as a Visiting PhD student at Columbia University to deepen my foundation in causal inference and foundational LLM design.

Latest News

July 2026

Heading to ICML 2026 in Seoul, South Korea! I'll be presenting across three workshops: Muslims in ML (July 8), Failure Modes of Agentic AI (July 10), and Forecasting as a New Frontier of Intelligence (July 11).

June 2026

Traveled to Seattle for the AHLI Conference on Health, Inference, and Learning (CHIL 2026) to present our accepted paper, "AgentRx: A Benchmark Study of LLM Agents for Multimodal Clinical Prediction Tasks".

June 2026

Started a new position as a Visiting Researcher at the University of Oxford's AI4DH lab, focusing on integrating agentic AI systems for ICU risk prediction.

June 2026

Honored to receive the Best Student Talk award at the UK Open Multimodal AI Network (UKOMAIN) Workshop in London, UK for my presentation on AgentRx.

April 2026

Our perspective paper, "A Data-Centric Perspective on Designing AI Foundation Models for Healthcare", was accepted for publication in Frontiers for Digital Health.

September 2025

Took on the role of Graduate Student Council President at New York University Abu Dhabi.

July 2025

Traveled to Copenhagen, Denmark for the 47th IEEE EMBC to present our work on "Enhancing In-hospital Mortality Prediction using Diverse Ensembles of Multimodal Fusion Networks".

July 2025

Conducted a one-week immersive shadowing experience at the Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi ICU to inform the design of the AgentRx benchmark.

July 2025

Our paper, "MedMod: Multimodal Benchmark for Medical Prediction Tasks", was accepted to the AHLI Conference on Health, Inference, and Learning (CHIL 2025).

June 2025

Presented our work, "MedPatch: Confidence-Guided Multi-Stage Fusion for Multimodal Clinical Data", at the Machine Learning in Healthcare Conference (MLHC) at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN.

May 2025

Completed my semester as a Visiting PhD Student at Columbia University, finishing coursework in Causal Inference and LLM Foundations.

April 2025

Traveled to New York City for the 2025 Northeast Bioengineering Conference (NEBEC) to present our poster on "MSMA: Multistage Missingness-Aware Fusion Network".

February 2025

Served as Communication Chair for the AI Revolution in Healthcare Summit (Clinical AI Lab x Medvarsity), coordinating with universities across the UAE.

January 2025

Began my semester as a Visiting PhD student at Columbia University's Fu Foundation School of Engineering.

Education

PhD in Computer Science, New York University | 9/2023 - Present

  • Expected Graduation: 2028
  • GPA: 3.9/4.0
  • Research Focus: Advancing Multimodal Machine Learning for Healthcare
  • Relevant Coursework:
    • NYU Tandon: Big Data, Algorithmic Machine Learning, AI for Games, Medical Robotics
    • NYU Courant: Natural Language Processing, Advanced Machine Learning
    • NYU Langone: Evaluation Methods for Predictive Risk Methods
    • NYUAD: Clinical AI Lab Readings in CS, Clinical AI Advanced Projects in CS

Visiting PhD Student, Columbia University | 1/2025 – 5/2025

  • Attended Fu Foundation School of Engineering in the Inter-University Engineering Doctoral Consortium
  • Completed advanced coursework in Causal Inference, Foundations of Large Language Models

BSc in Computer Engineering, New York University | 8/2019 - 5/2023

  • Capstone Project: Design of Navigation Algorithm using Reinforcement Learning for Library Robot
  • GPA: 3.8/4.0
  • Completed coursework in NYU Abu Dhabi, NYU Tandon, and NYU Tisch
  • Attended international seminars in Prague, Czech Republic (June 2022) | Athens, Greece (Jan 2023)

Research & Publications

Accepted Manuscripts

  • AgentRx: A Benchmark Study of LLM Agents for Multimodal Clinical Prediction Tasks.
    B. Al Jorf, F. Shamout. | AHLI Conference on Health, Inference, and Learning 2026
  • A Data-Centric Perspective on Designing AI Foundation Models for Healthcare.
    B. Al Jorf, B. Piechowski-Jozwiak, F. Shamout. | Frontiers for Digital Health
  • MedPatch: Confidence-Guided Multi-Stage Fusion for Multimodal Clinical Data.
    B. Al Jorf, F. Shamout. | Machine Learning in Healthcare Conference 2025
  • MedMod: Multimodal Benchmark for Medical Prediction Tasks.
    S. ElSharief, S. Shurrab, B. Al Jorf, L. Lopez, F. Shamout. | AHLI Conference on Health, Inference, and Learning 2025

Under Review

  • Multimodal Foundation Models in Medicine: A Roadmap towards Agentic Clinical AI.
    B. Al Jorf, S. Shurrab, D. Zhylko, F. Shamout.
  • When Teamwork Fails: A Structural Autopsy of Multi-Agent Failures in Clinical Risk Prediction.
    B. Al Jorf, F. Shamout.

Workshops, Presentations & Posters

  • ICML 2026 - Failure Modes of Agentic AI
    When Teamwork Fails: A Structural Autopsy of Multi-Agent Failures in Clinical Risk Prediction (B. Al Jorf, F. Shamout)
  • ICML 2026 - Forecasting as a New Frontier of Intelligence
    AgentRx: A Benchmark for Multimodal Clinical Forecasting with LLM Agents (B. Al Jorf, F. Shamout)
  • ICML 2026 - Muslims in ML
    AgentRx: A Benchmark for Multimodal Clinical Forecasting with LLM Agents (B. Al Jorf, F. Shamout)
  • UKOMAIN MultimodalAI 26 Workshop (Presentation & Poster)
    AgentRx: A Benchmark Study of LLM Agents for Multimodal Clinical Prediction Tasks (B. Al Jorf)
  • IEEE BioCAS Conference 2025 (Tutorial)
    Multimodal AI and Machine Learning for Precision Medicine (F. Shamout, B. Al Jorf, L. Lopez, C. Ma, C. Armanini)
  • 2025 ADIA Symposium (Poster)
    MedPatch: Confidence-Guided Multi-Stage Fusion for Multimodal Clinical Data: Path to Agentic Systems (B. Al Jorf, F. Shamout)
  • 47th IEEE EMBC (Abstract & Poster)
    Enhancing In-hospital Mortality Prediction using Diverse Ensembles of Multimodal Fusion Networks (B. Al Jorf, F. Shamout)
  • 2025 Northeast Bioengineering Conference (Abstract & Poster)
    MSMA: Multistage Missingness-Aware Fusion Network of Diverse Clinical Modalities for In-hospital Mortality Prediction (B. Al Jorf, F. Shamout)

Leadership & Experience

Click on any role to expand details

Visiting Researcher

University of Oxford - AI4DH lab | 6/2026 - Present

  • Integrating agentic AI systems and supervised baseline models into the CRITICAL-MM benchmark.
  • Designing a novel energy-based agentic system for ICU risk prediction.

Graduate Research Assistant

NYU Abu Dhabi - Clinical AI Lab | 7/2023 - Present

  • Trained, tested, and benchmarked 20+ fusion architectures using MIMIC-IV multimodal data.
  • Screened 140+ papers for a multimodal foundation model literature review.

Graduate Student Council President

New York University Abu Dhabi | 9/2025 - Present

  • Organized and managed logistics for large scale graduate community events.
  • Coordinated communications between the graduate student community and university admin.
  • Represented graduate students as a member of the university bookstore committee.

Graduate Teaching Assistant

New York University Abu Dhabi | 9/2025 - 1/2026

  • Mentored 25 students in Arabic Computational Linguistics, clarifying complex NLP concepts.
  • Developed and graded assignments, providing constructive feedback to reinforce student learning.

Intensive Care Unit Shadow

Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi | 7/2025

  • Conducted a one-week immersive shadowing experience to inform the design of the AgentRx benchmark.
  • Attended daily ICU rounds to identify opportunities for AI-driven predictive tools.

Communication Chair

AI Revolution in Healthcare Summit | 2/2025

  • Managed communication and outreach with 10 UAE universities.
  • Reviewed 20 abstract submissions and selected 8 for a conference poster session.

Moderator

Clinical AI Bootcamp | 11/2024

  • Collaborated with the Clinical AI team to organize a bootcamp attended by 20+ healthcare experts.
  • Developed guidelines for focus group and moderated discussions on data handling in clinical settings.

Beyond AI

When I'm not training multimodal models or analyzing clinical data, you can usually find me sketching, mentoring students, or engaging with the community. Here is a glimpse into some of my creative outlets and volunteer work.

Art Projects

I enjoy digital and traditional illustration. Check out some of my recent pieces and sketches on my art account.

Community Impact

Engineers for Social Impact

Urbz - Dharavi Mumbai, India

Developed a children's coding curriculum with a local company in Dharavi for a daycare center and produced a documentary film highlighting the experiences of 30 community members.

Special Needs Adaptive Program (SNAP)

NYUAD - Abu Dhabi, UAE

Dedicated weekly volunteer sessions to teach basketball and physical coordination to children with autism and Down syndrome.

STEM & Educational Mentorship

Facilitated leadership workshops for middle schoolers with the Boys Education Network, hosted virtual physics tutoring for high school juniors via NYUAD Community Outreach, and mentored female students pursuing tech degrees as a WeSTEM Mentor.

Community Engagement

Volunteered with Habitat for Humanity (Genesee County) building houses, supported the Hala Mondial initiative engaging neurodivergent students during the World Cup, and served as an usher for the Hay Festival of Literature and the Arts.

Awards & Skills

Awards

UK Open Multimodal AI Network Best Student Talk 6/2026

Awarded for the most outstanding student presentation at the MultimodalAI 26 Workshop.

NYUAD Global PhD Fellowship 7/2023

5-year doctoral fellowship awarded for academic merit.

Abu Dhabi Golden Visa 7/2023

10-year visa awarded for exceptional academic achievement.

Skills

Programming & Technology

Python C++ MATLAB Pytorch Tensorflow ROS Bash High Performance Computing

Leadership & Soft Skills

Public Speaking Peer-counselling Active Listening Project Management Multi-tasking