Research Projects

My Research Projects and Accolades

RetinAI — Early Eye Tumor Detection

RetinAI addresses the challenge of early retinoblastoma (RB) detection in settings where timely, accurate eye exams are limited and late-stage disease often leads to blindness or enucleation. It is the first low-cost wearable headset and retinal camera with integrated AI for early RB screening. The system combines an extraocular leukocoria detector powered by a YOLOv11 model, and an intraocular retinal imaging system using ResNet-50 or YOLOv11 to identify retinal tumors. Its hardware includes a 3D-printed headset, Pi Camera 3, dual infrared/white-LED illumination, LCD screen, 20D lens, and Raspberry Pi 5. Color analysis confirmed that leukocoria differs from normal pupils in Value, Hue, and Saturation, and the YOLOv11 detector achieved 98% mAP, identifying leukocoria as small as 1 mm. For tumor detection, ResNet-50 reached 97% accuracy and YOLOv11 reached 96% mAP. Clinical testing on both normal and RB patients showed that RetinAI accurately detects normal retina and retinoblastoma tumors. As the first low-cost system capable of identifying tumors from both external pupil images and intraocular retinal images—without pupil-dilation medication—RetinAI enables earlier, accessible RB screening in homes, routine check-ups, and small clinics without eye specialists.

RetinAI Project Video

RetinAI Accolades:

  • ISEF 2025 – Top Award
  • ISEF 2025 – 1st Place Grand Award, Biomedical Engineering
  • EUCYS 2025 – Core Prize, 3rd Place
  • KnowTheGlow Global Collaboration
  • Invitation to Netflix series “Freshman Inventors” – Top 4 national invitation
  • Featured in national media (ABC, FOX, KTLA, Yahoo, MarketWatch) for RetinAI’s impact

Retin AI Patent Pending

Integrated AI-Powered Wearable Device and Retinal Imaging System for Early Home-Based Screening and Detection of Ocular Tumors
Utility Patent – Nonprovisional Application Filed (USPTO Application #19/350,655)
First Inventor: Ethan Yan
Filed: October 6, 2025
Status: Patent Pending

ALLocate — AI System for Real-Time Leukemia Detection

Leukemia diagnosis is often slow and resource-dependent, limited by cost, time, and clinical expertise. To address this, I developed ALLocate, the first integrated low-cost AI system for real-time localization and classification of acute myeloid leukemia in bone marrow smears. The system combines a 3D-printed automatic microscope scanner (stepper motors + RAMPS control board), a CNN-based region classifier to filter usable marrow areas, a U-Net model for cell segmentation, and an optimized YOLOv8 detector for real-time AML identification.

ALLocate achieves 96% region-classifier accuracy, 85% U-Net segmentation accuracy, and 91% YOLOv8 mAP. In testing, its results matched a clinician’s diagnosis with only a 1% difference, while reducing analysis time from 30 minutes to under 1 minute. This is the first demonstration of a unified deep-learning system paired with a low-cost automated microscope for leukemia detection, designed to make rapid diagnostics accessible in low-resource and underserved clinical settings.

ALLocate Project Video

ALLocate Accolades:

  • Davidson Fellow Scholarship (2025)
  • NeurIPS High School Track Award – Top 4 (2024)
  • ISEF 2024 – Third Award, Translational Medical Science
  • AAAI Honorable Mention (ISEF 2024)
  • Massachusetts Science & Engineering Fair – 1st Place (2025)
  • Massachusetts Region IV Science & Engineering Fair – Grand Prize, Top 1 (2025)
  • Junior Science & Humanities Symposium (JSHS) – National Finalist (2025)
  • Publication: Detection of Acute Myeloid Leukemia Using Deep Learning Models Based Systems (2024)
  • Manuscript Submitted: An AI-Powered Self-Driving Microscope for Low-Cost Acute Leukemia Detection (submitted to Nature Communications)
  • Conference Presentation: NeurIPS 2024 Poster Presentation (Vancouver)
  • Conference Presentation: International Conference on e-Health & Bioengineering – Oral Presentation (Romania, 2023)
  • Research Internship: Stanford University – Biomedical AI Internship (2025)
  • Research Internship: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) – AI Internship (2024–2025)
  • Featured in national media (ABC, FOX, KTLA, Yahoo, MarketWatch) for ALLocate’s impact

Classic and Novel Deep-Learning Based Detection Systems for Leukemia

This project examines whether deep-learning models can detect acute leukemia from a single blood smear image, comparing a convolutional neural network (CNN) for classification with YOLOv4, a one-stage detector not previously applied to leukemia cell identification. A dataset of 4,000 leukemia cells and 14,000 normal white blood cells was reformatted for both models and divided into a 70/30 training–testing split. Each model surpassed 90% accuracy, and YOLOv4 additionally provided precise localization of leukemic cells within smear images, enhancing its potential for clinical diagnostic workflows. This work forms the foundation of a multi-year leukemia AI pipeline, informing later advances in automated microscopy, U-Net segmentation, and YOLO-based real-time detection in the ALLocate system.

Broadcom MASTERS Impact

  • National Top 30 Finalist 
  • Advanced from the Top 300 to the Top 30 national finalists
  • Presented research during Broadcom MASTERS Finals Week
  • Participated in multi-round judging interviews and STEM challenges
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