Elham Azizi

Elham Azizi

Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering; Herbert and Florence Irving Assistant Professor of Cancer Data Research

Elham Azizi’s multidisciplinary research utilizes novel machine learning techniques and cutting-edge genomic technologies to study the composition and circuitry of cells in tumors.

Characterizing various interacting cell types in the tumor microenvironment, and unraveling their underlying mechanisms can guide the development of improved and personalized cancer treatments. Azizi’s approach involves leveraging genomic profiling at single-cell resolution and developing machine learning and statistical method to analyze and integrate high-dimensional genomic and imaging data.

Azizi holds a BSc in Electrical Engineering from Sharif University of Technology (2008), and an MSc in Electrical Engineering (2010) and a PhD in Bioinformatics (2014) from Boston University. She was a postdoctoral fellow at Columbia University and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (2014-2019). She joined the faculty of Columbia Biomedical Engineering and Irving Institute of Cancer Dynamics in 2020. She is also affiliated with the Department of Computer Science, Data Science Institute, and the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Research Areas

  • Bioinformatics
  • Cell & Tissue Engineering
  • Genomics and Computational Modeling
  • Personalized Medicine and Patient-specific Modeling
  • Systems Biology and Synthetic Biology
  • Computational Biology
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Causal Inference
  • Biology

Additional Information

  • Professional Affiliations
    • American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) 2017- International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB) 2020
  • Honors & Awards
    • Early-Career Innovator in Science Award in Cancer Immunology, Takeda and the New York Academy of Sciences (one awardee across the globe), 2024.
    • Allen Distinguished Investigator Award, Allen Institute, 2023.
    • NHGRI Award for Supporting Talented Early Career Researchers in Genomics (R01), 2023.
    • CZI Science Diversity Leadership Award, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2022.
    • NSF CAREER Award, 2022.
    • Provost’s Grant for junior faculty contributing to the diversity goals of Columbia University, 2022.
    • Columbia Research Initiatives in Science & Engineering (RISE) Award, 2021.
    • Irving Endowed Assistant Professorship in Cancer Data Research, Columbia University, 2020.
    • Tri-Institutional Breakout Prize for Junior Investigators, Weill Cornell Medicine, Rockefeller University, and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, 2019.
    • Next Generation in Biomedicine (20 scientists selected worldwide), Broad institute of MIT and Harvard, 2018.
    • NIH NCI Pathway to Independence Award (K99/R00), 2018.
    • American Cancer Society Postdoctoral Fellowship, 2017.
    • IBM Best Student Paper Award, New England Statistics Symposium (NESS), 2014.
    • TEDMED Front Line Scholarship, 2014.
  • Professional Experience
    • Herbert & Florence Irving Assistant Professor of Cancer Data Research (in the Irving Institute for Cancer Dynamics), Columbia University, 2020
    • Assistant Professor (tenure track), Department of Biomedical Engineering, Columbia University, 2020
    • Affiliated Faculty, Department of Computer Science, Columbia University, 2020
    • Affiliated Member, Data Science Institute, Columbia University, 2020
    • Member, Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center, Columbia University, 2020
  • Education
    • PhD, Bioinformatics, Boston University
    • MS, Electrical Engineering, Boston University
    • BS, Electrical Engineering, Sharif University of Technology