Dr. Michael Dunham Awarded NSF Collaborative Grant for AI-Driven Medical Privacy Research
Dr. Michael Dunham, Professor of Otolaryngology at the LSU School of Medicine, was awarded a National Science Foundation (NSF) collaborative grant totaling $1.2 million for a project that will develop and improve patient safety in AI supported-medical surveillance tools.
“We are incredibly proud of Dr. Dunham for the work he’s put in to receive this monumental grant,” said Dr. Richard DiCarlo, Dean of the LSU Health Sciences Center School of Medicine. “This grant reflects the innovation and collaboration that drive both Dr. Dunham’s work and LSU Health New Orleans as a whole.”
The NSF awarded this multi-institutional grant under its Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace (SaTC) 2.0 program to researchers at Kansas State University, Louisiana State University, and Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center. The project, “Collaborative Research: SaTC 2.0: RES: A Privacy-Preserving Framework for Sharing and Learning from Scarce Medical Data,” aims to revolutionize how sensitive medical data is shared and analyzed using novel artificial intelligence (AI) techniques.
This collaborative research effort addresses a pressing challenge in modern healthcare: enabling secure and privacy-preserving access to patient video data for research and clinical applications. The project seeks to develop novel AI frameworks that protect patient privacy while facilitating meaningful data-driven insights across institutions.
Funded through the Research (RES) designation of the SaTC 2.0 program, the project aligns with NSF’s increased emphasis on cybersecurity and artificial intelligence, particularly in domains like healthcare where data sensitivity is paramount.
As part of the development of this framework, Dr. Dunham will employ his Eyes-On Decannulation Detector (E-O-DD), a patented technology designed to enhance remote visual monitoring of tracheostomy-dependent infants to reduce the risk of serious complications resulting from tracheostomy-tube dislodgment.
This award underscores the commitment of Dr. Dunham’s research team to interdisciplinary collaboration in service of medical privacy and data ethics.