I am a postdoctoral researcher at KU Leuven Kulak, working in the Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence lab of Dr. Celine Vens in the Data driven Healthcare research group. I am also a senior researcher at itec (the interdisciplinary research group of KU Leuven and imec). My current research is focused on using explainable machine learning methods to identify early warning signs of patient decline in acute and chronic health care contexts. Previously, I was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Colorado Boulder BioFrontiers Institute and a doctoral student at the University of Colorado Boulder working mostly in computational ecology, co-advised by Dr. Aaron Clauset in Computer Science and Dr. Laura Dee in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. I’ve also previously done research in human-computer interaction. I am particularly interested in collaborative interdisciplinary projects and in using novel methods from machine learning and network science to generate insights from biological and biomedical data, with a focus on model interpretability.

For more on my educational and professional background, see my LinkedIn

For a list of my publications, see my Google Scholar or ResearchGate profiles.

For code repositories associated with my publications, see my GitHub.

You can also find me on BlueSky @lucyvankleunen.bsky.social.

Recent Happenings

January 2025 – I started as a postdoctoral researcher at KU Leuven Kulak!

November 2024 – We posted a new pre-print on bioRxiv: “Predicting missing links in food webs using stacked models and species traits”

November 2024 – Our paper is out in Cancer Immunology Research: “The Spatial Structure of the Tumor Immune Microenvironment Can Explain and Predict Patient Response in High-Grade Serous Carcinoma”

May 2024 - I defended my PhD dissertation entitled “Interpretable Prediction and Decision-Making Under Uncertainty Using Biological Networks.”

Septemer 2023 - Presented with Dr. Benjamin Bitler (Department of OB/GYN, The University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus) at the Ovarian Cancer Think Tank Meeting about ongoing work with him, Dr. Aaron Clauset, and other CU Anschutz collaborators - “Spatial structure of the tumor microenvironment in high grade serous ovarian carcinoma.”

August 2023 - Presented at the Ecological Society of America conference in Portland, Oregon - “Predicting missing interactions in food webs using stacked models and species traits” (ongoing work with Dr. Aaron Clauset, Dr. Laura Dee, Dr. Françosi Massol and Dr. Kate Wottoon) and won the Volterra Award for the best student talk on ecological theory.

April 2023 - Our Synthesis article “Decision-making under uncertainty for species introductions into ecological networks” was published in Ecology Letters! This involved a collaborative effort with members of the Dee Lab to synthesize literature related to species introductions into ecosystems and I show that using dynamic network models one can visualize trade-offs and make decisions under uncertainty about species introductions including in high-stakes ecosystem management scenarios such as assisted migration.