Research Assistant Data Science
Resume:
Mehrnaz Abedian
www.linkedin.com/in/mehrnaz-abedian
*******.*******@*****.***
Education
University of Pittsburgh 2023–2024
Master of Science, Health Informatics (Data Science Track)
GPA 3.9
Shiraz University 2010–2013
Master of Science, Biology
GPA 3.7
Work Experience
Research Assistant
Pitt Health + Explainable AI (HexAI) Lab Pittsburgh, PA 2023–Present
Led the Knee Annotation Group, performing X-ray and MRI segmentation using ITK-SNAP, creating gold-standard data and label descriptions for an AI model, resulting in a Nature journal publication.
Lab Manager
Cell Reprogramming & Therapeutics Lab Milwaukee, WI 2018–2019
Successfully developed protocols to generate neuronal and glial subtypes from donor adipose tissue for drug discovery.
Validated results through RT-PCR and IHC.
Managed lab operations, including budgeting and equipment, and implemented cost-saving strategies, securing a 6-month project extension.
Trained new team members and planned lab equipment scheduling
Research Assistant
Milwaukee, United States Feb. 2016 – June 2016
Collected and recorded patient data using the Confusion Assessment Method (CAM) to identify delirium in hospitalized older adults, entering findings into the hospital's EHR system to support clinical decision-making.
Academic Project
Cardiovascular Disease Prediction Model https://github.com/MehrnazABDN/CVD_NHANES_Analysis
Built ML models for CVD prediction (NHANES, Python) using Random Forest, SVM, XGBoost, ADASYN.
Achieved 96.3% accuracy (RF), improved SVM from 92.38% to 95.81%.
Identified key health predictors.
Exploring Diabetes Risk Factors https://github.com/MehrnazABDN/Diabetes_NHIS
Analyzed 2022 NHIS data for diabetes risk, applying data cleaning, imputation, EDA, feature selection, and logistic regression (79.2% accuracy), identifying hypertension, cholesterol, and depression as key predictors.
Emergency Insight Dashboard https://github.com/MehrnazABDN/Emergency-Insight-Dashboard-
Built an interactive Power BI dashboard with synthetic ER data, visualizing visits, gender, satisfaction, wait times, and resource heatmap.
Vaccination Tracking Database
Designed a SQL database for vaccine tracking, integrated Python for preprocessing, and built a Power BI dashboard for real-time public health insights.
Certifications
Health Information Literacy for Data Analytics Specialization
University of California, Davis (via Coursera) 2025
Medical Billing and Coding Fundamentals Specialization
MedCerts, a Stride Company (via Coursera), 2025
HIPAA Certification
University of Pittsburgh 2023
Technical Skills
Programming and Statistical Tools: Python, R, SQL, SPSS, STATA
Data Analysis and Visualization: Matplotlib, Seaborn, ggplot2, Tableau, Power BI
Machine Learning and AI: Convolutional Neural Networks, Logistic Regression, Random, Forest, XGBoost, SVM, Decision Trees
Other Tools: ITK_SNAP (Image Segmentation Toll), EHR, Microsoft Access
Selected Publications
Siddiqui, I.A., Abedian, M., et al. "Fair AI-powered orthopedic image segmentation. " Scientific Reports, 2024. DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-66873-6
Littlefield, N., Abedian, M., et al. "Learning Unbiased Image Segmentation: A Case Study with Plain Knee Radiographs." IEEE BHI Conference, 2023.
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