Project summary

Through the PRISM AI Safety Research Fellowship, under the mentorship of Prof. Zeenath Reza Khan, my team and I are studying trust calibration in healthcare AI under incomplete information.

The project asks when users should rely on, verify, delay, question, or reject AI recommendations, especially when AI outputs include explanations, confidence cues, uncertainty cues, or warning/verification prompts. This work has produced an accepted NeurIPS 2026 workshop paper, a public HAI-TRUST dataset on Zenodo, an ICAMAC 2026 manuscript under review, and an empirical study with survey design completed and data collection in progress.

I am an equal-contributing author on the accepted NeurIPS workshop paper and am seeking support to travel to Atlanta to present the work in person.

Project Links:

OpenReview paper: https://openreview.net/forum?id=48s9v6mYez
Zenodo dataset: https://zenodo.org/records/22855853

What are this project's goals? How will you achieve them?

The immediate goal is to present our accepted NeurIPS 2026 workshop paper on trust calibration in healthcare AI and use feedback from the NeurIPS community to refine and strengthen the accepted paper, the empirical paper in progress, and the HAI-TRUST manuscript.

The overall research goal is to improve how AI systems are evaluated in high-stakes human decision settings. In healthcare AI, the safety problem is not simply whether people trust AI more or less, but whether their reliance is calibrated to the quality, limits, and uncertainty of the AI output. Our work studies this through a thematic review, conceptual framework, HAI-TRUST scenario-bank dataset, and empirical study.

I will achieve this by attending the NeurIPS 2026 Workshop on Human-AI Coevolution in Atlanta, presenting the work in person, discussing it with researchers in AI safety, human-AI interaction, healthcare AI, and evaluation, and bringing that feedback back into the under-review manuscripts and ongoing empirical work.

How will this funding be used?

This funding would support my travel to Atlanta for NeurIPS 2026 to present our accepted workshop paper in person.

Minimum funding requested: $1,000. This would cover accommodation.

Maximum funding goal: $2,300. This would cover the full estimated travel cost:

• $1,000 accommodation

• $550 round-trip travel to Atlanta

• $400 meals during travel and workshop attendance

• $250 local transportation

• $100 poster printing/presentation materials

Registration is not included in this request because PRISM will cover conference registration for one author. I have also applied/will apply to other travel funding sources, including BlueDot Rapid Grants, but no travel grant or funding is confirmed yet.

Who is on your team? What's your track record on similar projects?

Our research team is part of the PRISM AI Safety Research Fellowship, under the mentorship of Prof. Zeenath Reza Khan. The team consists of four research fellows, including Kumari Neha Priya (myself), Favour Chisom Akabogu, Rokhaya Diagne, and Tustee Mazumdar.

I am an equal-contributing author on our accepted NeurIPS 2026 workshop paper and have actively contributed to strengthening the project through all phases, including literature synthesis, conceptual framework development, ethics application preparation, scenario-bank development, manuscript preparation, and empirical study design. I am also the team member seeking funding to travel to Atlanta and present our work in person.

Our team has successfully produced an accepted NeurIPS workshop paper, a publicly released HAI-TRUST dataset on Zenodo, a PRISM fellowship poster presentation, and a manuscript under review at ICAMAC 2026. We are also working on an empirical paper.

My research background combines AI safety, healthcare AI, machine learning, empirical analysis, and AI governance. I hold an MS in Business Analytics (4.0 GPA) from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where I currently work as an academic researcher at Gies College of Business. My ongoing work includes research on emerging U.S. healthcare policy, technology, and innovation, developing a healthcare research website for teaching and research, and co-authoring research on responsible AI in public health with Prof. Sridhar Seshadri.

Previously, I was a SPAR Research Fellow under the mentorship of Joël N. Christoph, studying market-based compute permits for frontier AI governance. I have also contributed to an international AI healthcare regulation white paper, worked on LLM evaluation through Handshake AI, Turing, Mercor, and Micro1, and served as a reviewer for two NeurIPS 2026 workshops. I also completed BlueDot Impact's AGI Strategy course.

Relevant work includes:

• NeurIPS accepted paper: https://openreview.net/forum?id=48s9v6mYez

• HAI-TRUST dataset: https://zenodo.org/records/22855853

• SPAR research report: https://library.sparai.org/reports/market-based-compute-permits-for-frontier-ai-safety-vr1nia/

• CV: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ETvXsFKOrHWqppKb3dxfcTSwCyMFNaI-/view?usp=sharing

What are the most likely causes and outcomes if this project fails?

The project itself will continue, but I may not be able to attend NeurIPS in person because the travel cost is high for me to cover personally. If I cannot travel, my team may need to rely on lower-cost alternatives, but we would lose the opportunity to present the work directly to the NeurIPS community.

The impact would be losing in-person feedback, collaboration, networking, and visibility at one of the world’s leading AI/ML conferences. That feedback is important now to further refine and strengthen our accepted paper, empirical paper, and HAI-TRUST manuscript.

Personally, attending NeurIPS would also be meaningful for my long-term PhD and research career goals combining AI safety, healthcare AI, human-AI evaluation, and AI governance.

How much money have you raised in the last 12 months, and from where?

I have not raised external travel funding for this NeurIPS trip yet. PRISM is expected to cover conference registration for one author, but this does not cover my travel, accommodation, meals, local transportation, or other related costs. I have applied/will apply to other travel funding sources, including BlueDot Rapid Grants, but nothing is confirmed yet.