Amaia Pikatza’s doctoral thesis

Last Friday, we had the distinct pleasure of attending the doctoral thesis defense of Amaia Pikatza Huerga, titled: “Human-Centred Machine Learning for Health and Cognitive Modelling.”

Her research tackles one of the greatest challenges in contemporary technology: how can we trust Artificial Intelligence in critical sectors like healthcare? Amaia’s answer is definitive: by keeping people at the center.

Core Pillars of Research

Through four high-impact case studies, Dr. Pikatza Huerga demonstrated how predictive modeling can coexist with human oversight:

• ❤️ Heart Failure: Improving predictive accuracy while ensuring clinical relevance.

• 🏥 Multimorbidity: Navigating complex, co-occurring health conditions.

• 🧠 Eating Disorders: Developing data models to better understand behavioral health.

• 💡 Human Creativity: Explored through the lens of cognitive modeling.

The Impact of Explainable AI (XAI)

Amaia has proven that it is entirely possible to build high-performance predictive models that remain transparent and interpretable. Her work highlights the immense value of Explainable AI (XAI), allowing medical and psychology professionals to understand the “why” behind every prediction. This transparency paves the way for safer, more confident, and inherently human decision-making.

Congratulations, Dr. Amaia Pikatza Huerga, on this incredibly well-deserved milestone! Your contribution to a more ethical, comprehensible AI that aligns with real-world needs is truly inspiring. We wish you the absolute best in your next chapter! 🚀