Academic Background
I recently completed my PhD in Health Data Science at the University of Cambridge. My thesis was titled “Evaluating and enhancing cardiovascular disease risk prediction using algorithmic fairness”. I was part of the Health Data Research UK-Turing Wellcome PhD Programme, supervised by Angela Wood, Mike Inouye, and Sam Lambert. I have recently started as a Research Scientist as Helmholtz Munich in AI & Environmental Health, where I am using machine learning to better understand relationships between the environment and health outcomes, jointly considering algorithmic fairness.
Before my PhD, I was a DeepMind Scholar in MPhil Advanced Computer Science at the Cambridge Computer Laboratory, supervised by Neil Lawrence. I specialised in AI and ML courses, and my thesis topic was ``Fairness and the bias-variance trade-off”. I was a member of Clare Hall College.
I completed my first-class BSc in Computer Science at the University of Birmingham, with visiting student placements at the University of British Columbia and the University of Waterloo.
After my undergraduate degree, I worked as an AI research consultant, where I joined a start-up company building artificial intelligence software for autonomous vehicles. Here, my research was on the implementation and optimisation of multi-objective route planning algorithms. For this work, I have two patents: Vehicle Route Guidance and Target Speed Optimisation.
I especially love the collaborative elements of research, learning from people from with different perspectives - feel free to get in touch for a chat via Bluesky, LinkedIn, or e-mail cic31[at]cam.ac.uk!
Recent News
- March 2025: Passed my PhD viva with minor corrections! Thanks to my examiners Niels Peek and Allan Tucker for an insightful viva.
- February 2025: Joined Helmholtz Munich as a Research Scientist in AI & Environmental Health.
- December 2024: Submitted PhD thesis on Evaluating and enhancing cardiovascular disease risk prediction using algorithmic fairness.
- December 2024: PPIE report released on Equitable, trustworthy and safe research in healthcare technology, data and artificial intelligence: an international dialogue.
- December 2024: My poster was accepted for presentation at AMLD EPFL 2025 on Algorithmic Fairness in CVD risk prediction models.
- October 2024: Spoke at the International Day of Women in Statistics and Data Science conference on Data science for health equity.
- September 2024: Spoke at ECML PKDD conference on Algorithmic fairness in cardiovascular disease risk prediction.
- June 2024: Attended FAccT conference in Rio de Janeiro.
- April 2024: Spoke at the Data Science for Health Equity Statistical Methods meetup on Algorithmic fairness in clinical risk prediction.
- March 2024: Spoke at the Cambridge Festival on Artificial Intelligence: with great power comes great responsibility.
Publications & Patents
- Cardiovascular risk prediction using metabolomic biomarkers and polygenic risk scores: A cohort study and modelling analyses
SC Ritchie, X Jiang, L Pennells, Y Xu, C Coffey, Y Liu, P Surendran, S Karthikeyan, SA Lambert, J Danesh, AS Butterworth, A Wood, S Kaptoge, E Di Angelantonio, M Inouye
medRxiv preprint (2023) - Axes of prognosis: Identifying subtypes of COVID-19 Outcomes
E Whitfield *, C Coffey *, H Zhang, T Shi, X Wu, Q Li, H Wu (* = equal contribution)
American Medical Informatics Association Annual Symposium conference paper, presentation recording (2021) - Achieving Net Zero within the NHS: System-wide transition to greener, sustainable care
University of Cambridge ThinkLab: B Eldridge-Thomas, S Carden, C Bücker, B Davies, S Ajadi, C Coffey, A De Fauconberg, A Hourihane, B Klein, W Moody, I Sami, A Santaro, A Sobey, C Tobin, C Tsai, V Viisainen, Y Zou
University of Cambridge Apollo, commissioned scientific report (2022) - Vehicle Route Guidance
JA Kelly, M Lathbury, E Bacci, C Coffey, AS Bahra, D Parker, NA Hawes
US patent (2019) - Target Speed Optimisation
JA Kelly, C Coffey, AS Bahra, M Lathbury, NA Hawes, D Parker
GB patent (2018)
Academic Talks
- International Day of Women in Statistics and Data Science (IDWSDS) Conference (2024): Data Science for Health Equity: Algorithmic Fairness in Cardiovascular Disease Risk Prediction.
- European Conference on Machine Learning (ECML PKDD) (2024): Understanding and Improving Algorithmic Fairness in Cardiovascular Disease Risk Prediction.
- HDR UK Cambridge Community Meeting (2023): Understanding and Improving Fairness in Medical Risk Prediction.
- HDR UK Doctoral Immersion Week on Fairness in healthcare data modelling(2023): Algorithmic fairness in cardiovascular disease risk prediction.
- American Medical Informatics Association Annual Symposium (2021): Axes of prognosis: Identifying subtypes of COVID-19 Outcomes. Recording.
- HDR UK Bimonthly Webinar (2021) : Running and completing a PhD in the time of COVID with Peter Diggle.
- UCL MedTech Conference (2021): Sharing my experiences in MedTech.
Public Engagement & Science Communication
- Cambridge Festival (2024): Public talk on Artificial Intelligence: With great power comes great responsibility. Abstract.
- Cambridge Festival (2023): Public talk on Fairness in medical risk prediction algorithms. Recording.
- Blog posts.
I am keen to be involved in more science communication work, as I believe public engagement should be a core part of research.
Teaching
- Artificial Intelligence: Theory, Responsibility, and Sustainability (2023): Co-designed and delivered this course for high school students. My sections focused on on AI for sustainable development, climate change, and AI in the Global South.
- MPhil Population Health Sciences (2023): Teaching assistant on the Advanced Statistics for Epidemiology module.
- High school Computer Science (2017-2022): Personalised tutoring for GCSE and A-Level; teaching computer science in schools years 7-13.
Academic Activities
- Statistical Methods for Health Equity Organiser (2021-2024): Data Science for Health Equity. Organising seminars, running a reading group, and conducting research on statistical methods for health equity. We run a yearly symposium on Statistical Methods for Health Equity.
- Journal manuscript reviewer: For Science and European Heart Journal (collaborative lab reviews).
Other Projects
- Reinforcement learning for healthcare: Explored various reinforcement learning paradigms with a focus on offline RL and how this can be applied to the problem of multimorbidity trajectory modelling. Supervised by Chris Yau.
- Fairness and the bias-variance trade-off: MPhil thesis, exploring bias and variance errors in ML automated decision making in the context of algorithmic fairness, using data on criminal recidivism. Supervised by Neil Lawrence.
- Multi objective journey optimisation: BSc thesis, created an AI journey optimisation system for autonomous vehicles with the University of Birmingham and Inventive Cogs. Supervised by Dave Parker.
- Risk communication: Building predictive models to reduce health inequities also requires adequate communication and presentation of risk to patients. I am therefore involved a project on evaluating disease risk communication tools led by Owen Taylor.
Personal Interests
Singing is one of my favourite hobbies, and I am a member of Clare Hall Choir. Elsewhere, I have been a soloist, lead vocalist, backing vocalist, and chorister in genres ranging from rock to classical!
I am also passionate about sustainability, and in particular, local sustainability initiatives and growing food. I co-founded the University of Cambridge Allotment Society, where we built a community to grow fruit and vegetables sustainably, and donate excess to local charities. This included writing grant applications for funding, managing the day-to-day running of the allotment, and social media management.
I love learning new things, meeting new people, and keeping active; I have taken up various hobbies to feed this curiosity. I adore travelling, especially exploring nature! My other hobbies include hiking, dancing (ex-UK freestyle display team), yoga, digital art, and photography. I also train in Fujian White Crane Kung Fu and rowed in Clare Hall Boat Club, where I was social secretary and organised the inaugural international training camp for the club.