CIVS CS Graduate Research Assistant Nadeem Jaffer Mohammed Successfully Defended Master’s Thesis

Congratulations to Nadeem Jaffer Mohammed on successfully defending his M.S. thesis in Computer Science, “Artificial Intelligence and Virtual Reality in Healthcare: Mental Health and Electronic Health Records” on July 24.

Nadeem’s thesis reflects the impactful interdisciplinary research enabled by collaboration between PNW’s Department of Computer Science and the Center for Innovation through Visualization and Simulation (CIVS). As a major student researcher on VR-FUTURES and Smart-EHR, he combines cutting-edge artificial intelligence, large language models, and immersive virtual reality technologies to address two important healthcare challenges.

In VR-FUTURES, Nadeem uses VR and LLMs to help youth affected by adverse childhood experiences learn emotional-regulation strategies and practice them in realistic situations. The project brings together PNW, Shepherd Community Center, and the Institute for Creative Technologies at the University of Southern California. In Smart-EHR, he develops methods to help physicians understand complex electronic health records more efficiently. His research identified factual errors in LLM-generated clinical summaries and developed validation metrics and fine-tuning strategies to improve their accuracy and reliability, supporting AI-powered trustworthy and efficient patient care.

Together, these projects demonstrate how interdisciplinary student research at PNW can translate advanced computing technologies into practical solutions for healthcare and community needs.

Nadeem’s thesis was co-chaired by Prof. Yang Ni and Prof. Chenn Zhou, with committee members Prof. Grace Yang and Prof. Shafkat Islam. He was also mentored by CIVS Senior Research Scientist Jack Moreland on VR-FUTURES.