Y (Rena) Yang

Yang (Rena) Yang is a postdoc researcher specializing in public health, AI, and data science. Her work focuses on digital health and translational AI to promote healthier lifestyles and preventive care. She holds a PhD and MSc in Public Health and Health Systems, an MBET in Business, Entrepreneurship and Technology, and a BEng in Computer Engineering.

Rena has led projects on digital disease surveillance, biomedical data translation, and predictive modeling, with research experience in Canada and the Netherlands. She previously co-led national initiatives on digital health and cancer prediction at the University of Waterloo and managed the NIH/NCATS Biomedical Data Translator project at Maastricht University. She is currently based at Wageningen University & Research, advancing AI-driven health behavior analytics and teaching data science for health.

Her publications appear in The Lancet Digital Health, The Lancet Regional Health, JMIR, and Clinical Nutrition, covering topics such as youth substance use, fall-risk prediction, dialysis care, and disease surveillance. With prior leadership roles at Siemens, Danaher, and Lenovo, Rena brings extensive industry experience to her academic work. Fluent in English and Mandarin, her research interests include generative AI, digital health innovation, health informatics, public health data science, precision and preventive health, data quality and reproducibility, ethical and explainable AI in health, global and cross-cultural health systems comparison.