Zijun Sun
Image:
Petter Bjørklund / SFI Visual Intelligence

Zijun Sun

Meet Zijun, our newest Doctoral Research Fellow

We happily welcome Zijun Sun as a new Doctoral Research Fellow at SFI Visual Intelligence in Tromsø, Norway.

Meet Zijun, our newest Doctoral Research Fellow

We happily welcome Zijun Sun as a new Doctoral Research Fellow at SFI Visual Intelligence in Tromsø, Norway.

By Petter Bjørklund, Communications Officer at SFI Visual Intelligence

Sun is from China and earned his master's degree in Artificial Intelligence from the University of Bologna.

Having an academic background in modern machine learning, Sun's research has focused on how one can move from strong benchmark performance to clinical value developing AI systems that are not only accurate, but interpretable, reliable and aligned with how medical professionals make decisions.

Sun's doctoral project will focus on foundational multimodal models for ophthalmology. Explainability will play a central role in his project.

"The goal is to develop models that can learn from multiple types of clinical information, for example medical images alongside accompanying context, so the resulting systems can support ophthalmologists with robust, clinically relevant outputs," Sun explains.

A big part of his project involves bridging the gap between AI and medical professionals. This means designing methods that do not operate as an unintelligible "black box", but instead offer transparency, clear visual and concept-level evidence, and well-calibrated uncertainty estimates.

"This is important for making clinicians understand what the system is basing its suggestions on, and when it is likely to be wrong. My ambition is to contribute to AI tools that clinicians can trust, critique, and use responsibly in real-world workflows," he says.

Sun says he is looking forward close collaboration between AI researchers and medical professionals, and to work in an environment where research is continuously informed by real clinical needs and constraints.

"For me, the most rewarding outcome is when methodological progress translates into something tangible: a system that helps a clinician make faster, safer, and more consistent decisions, while still leaving the clinician fully in control," Sun says.

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