About

Harrison is pursuing his MD–PhD at Stanford University, where his doctoral research focuses on developing artificial intelligence systems for precision medicine and drug discovery. He is advised by Dr. James Zou, affiliated with the Departments of Biomedical Data Science and Computer Science, and the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI. Harrison became deeply invested in the development and delivery of innovative medicines to patients as a student researcher in Aviv Regev's lab at Genentech.

Before Stanford, Harrison studied statistics and biology at Columbia University, graduating Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude, with Highest Honors. As an undergraduate, he was a research fellow at Harvard University, where he developed machine learning methods for clinical medicine, working with Drs. Tianxi Cai, Zak Kohane, and Katherine Liao.

Selected Publications

* denotes equal contribution. For the full list, see Google Scholar.

bioRxiv · 2026

The Virtual Biotech: a multi-agent AI framework for therapeutic discovery and development

Harrison G. Zhang, P. Eckmann, J. Miao, A. B. Mahon, J. Zou

Preprint

medRxiv · 2026

Multi-ancestral GWAS with the VA Million Veteran Program enables functional interpretation of rheumatoid arthritis alleles

S. Sakaue*, D. Yang*, Harrison G. Zhang*, D. Posner, Z. Rodriguez, et al., K. P. Liao

Preprint

Nature Biomedical Engineering · 2026

Phenotypic prediction of missense variants via deep contrastive learning

J. Wen, S. Zeng, …, Harrison G. Zhang, …, I. S. Kohane, M. Zitnik, T. Cai

Paper

EACL · 2026

Reasoning or knowledge: stratified evaluation of biomedical LLMs

R. Thapa, Q. Wu, K. Wu, Harrison G. Zhang, A. Zhang, E. Wu, et al., J. Zou

Paper

NeurIPS · 2025

CGBench: benchmarking language model scientific reasoning for clinical genetics research

O. Queen, Harrison G. Zhang, J. Zou

Paper

npj Digital Medicine · 2025

Label efficient phenotyping for Long COVID using electronic health records

C. Hong*, J. Wen*, Harrison G. Zhang*, et al., T. Cai

Paper

Nature Medicine · 2023

Potential pitfalls in the use of real-world data for studying long COVID

Harrison G. Zhang, J. P. Honerlaw, M. Maripuri, M. J. Samayamuthu, et al.

Paper

EBioMedicine · 2023

Identifying shared genetic architecture between rheumatoid arthritis and other conditions: a phenome-wide association study with genetic risk scores

Harrison G. Zhang, G. McDermott, T. Seyok, S. Huang, K. Dahal, S. L'Yi, et al.

Paper

npj Digital Medicine · 2022

International electronic health record–derived post-acute sequelae profiles of COVID-19 patients

Harrison G. Zhang*, A. Dagliati*, Z. Shakeri Hossein Abad, X. Xiong, C. L. Bonzel, et al.

Paper

BMJ Open · 2022

Changes in laboratory value improvement and mortality rates over the course of the pandemic: an international retrospective cohort study of hospitalised patients infected with SARS-CoV-2

C. Hong*, Harrison G. Zhang*, S. L'Yi*, et al.

Paper

Journal of Biomedical Informatics · 2022

SurvMaximin: robust federated approach to transporting survival risk prediction models

X. Wang, Harrison G. Zhang, X. Xiong, C. Hong, G. M. Weber, et al.

Paper

JAMIA · 2021

ATLAS: an automated association test using probabilistically linked health records with application to genetic studies

Harrison G. Zhang*, B. P. Hejblum*, G. M. Weber, et al.

Paper

JMIR · 2021

International changes in COVID-19 clinical trajectories across 315 hospitals and 6 countries: retrospective cohort study

G. M. Weber*, Harrison G. Zhang*, S. L'Yi*, et al.

Paper

Developmental Cell · 2021

Discrete cis-acting element regulates developmentally timed gene-lamina relocation and neural progenitor competence in vivo

T. Lucas*, T. L. Hafer*, Harrison G. Zhang, N. Molotkova, M. Kohwi

Paper

Acta Oncologica · 2020

Characterization of uveal melanoma clinical trial design: a systematic review to establish an elusive standard of care

Harrison G. Zhang, J. C. Moser, L. A. Dalvin

Paper

British Journal of Ophthalmology · 2018

Statistical approaches in published ophthalmic clinical science papers: a comparison to statistical practice two decades ago

Harrison G. Zhang, G.-S. Ying

Paper

Honors & Awards

  • 2025 Knight-Hennessy Scholarship
  • 2024 American College of Rheumatology Emerging Investigator Award of Excellence
  • 2024 Rheumatology Research Foundation Medical Student & Resident Research Award
  • 2024 Stanford HAI Graduate Fellowship
  • 2023 Samvid Scholarship
  • 2023 NIH Medical Scientist Training Program Predoctoral Fellowship
  • 2021 Brigham and Women's Translational Research Fellowship
  • 2020, 2021 Harvard Biomedical Informatics Research Fellowship
  • 2020 Memorial Sloan Kettering Summer Research Fellowship
  • 2018 Columbia Science Research Fellowship

Invited Talks and Conference Oral Presentations

  • Jul 2026 The Virtual Biotech: A Multi-Agent AI Framework for Therapeutic Discovery and Development · Oral presentation, ISMB 2026 (MLCSB track), Washington, DC
  • Nov 2024 Genome-wide Association of Rheumatoid Arthritis in the African Ancestry Identifies HLA Amino Acid Polymorphisms of Risk · American College of Rheumatology Conference, Washington, DC
  • Nov 2024 International Case Studies of Clinical Risk Prediction Models with Multi-Institutional EHR Data · Guest lecture, Artificial Intelligence in Medicine (AIM) PhD Program, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA
  • Nov 2022 Identifying shared genetic architecture between rheumatoid arthritis and other conditions: A Phenome-Wide Association Study · American College of Rheumatology Conference, Philadelphia, PA
  • Oct 2022 Multi-center Automated Knowledge Extraction and Transfer Learning with Electronic Health Records Data · Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA