Zhao Ni, ABSN'14 and PhD'19, and current postdoctoral associate for Yale's School of Medicine, proposed two grants to the NIH during his time at Yale for using machine learning to increase HIV testing. Both proposals have been funded.

One of them is a five-year R21/R33 grant ($1,328,408), in which he is the principal investigator. In this research project, he and his team aim to develop and pilot test an artificial intelligence (AI)-chatbot (R21 phase). Findings from the R21 phase will inform a Type 1 Hybrid Implementation Science trial (R33 phase) to evaluate the efficacy and implementation outcomes of the AI-chatbot for HIV testing relative to treatment as usual.