Baylor and Rice collaborate on AI humanities center

By Sanjana Ramieni     8/26/25 9:40pm

A new Center for Humanities-based Health AI Innovation launched this summer as a partnership between Rice and Baylor College of Medicine. According to Baylor, the center will aim to address an emerging issue in healthcare: incorporating human experiences and reducing bias in artifical intelligence. This three-year initiative is funded by a $500,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

CHHAIN’s work revolves around three main objectives: defining trustworthy AI through patient voices, translating humanities insights into clinical AI settings and applying these perspectives through public engagement and policy translation. 

Co-directors Vasiliki Rahimzadeh and Kirsten Ostherr said that CHHAIN works across the AI life cycle — from development to validation and finally implementation — to create policies that ensure transparency and reduce algorithmic bias. Rahimzadeh is an assistant professor at Baylor in the Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy, and Ostherr is director of the Medical Humanities Research Institute at Rice. 

---

---

“We lack understanding of what matters most to patients,” Rahimzadeh wrote in an email to the Thresher. “When, how, and who should be accountable for health AI’s mistakes? Should patients be consented when AI is used in their care, and how often?”

Rahimzadeh and Ostherr said that the center embeds patient perspectives into AI by involving diverse communities and bringing their insights into design sessions with technology developers, startup founders and other stakeholders.

Their work could not come at a more critical time, according to the World Economic Forum’s 2025 report highlights. AI is being rapidly adopted into clinical practices, as reported in SQ Magazine, 89% of healthcare executives in 2025 reported using AI in at least one clinical or operational function. 

However, further research suggests that patients’ needs and expectations are often overlooked in the design and use of AI in medicine.

“We have designed CHHAIN for maximal impact on these debates through rigorous stakeholder-engaged research,” wrote Rahimzadeh. “My hope for CHHAIN is that we can move the debate outside the academy and provide real solutions.”

Personal stories and human experiences are integral to enhancing relevance and fairness in treatment, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Ostherr said that a humanitarian outlook is crucial. 

“The biggest misconception is that the humanities are somehow ‘extra,’” Ostherr wrote in an email to the Thresher. “Anyone who has had a positive experience with healthcare knows that being treated like a real person, not like a dataset or a set of symptoms, makes a profound difference.”

---