Our Goals
Collaboration
Foster collaborative, interdisciplinary research in digital health and artificial intelligence.
Training
Create opportunities for students, staff and faculty to take part in interdisciplinary research training.
Public Health
Use mobile health interventions for public health monitoring and patient care during complex emergencies, such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the HIV epidemic.
Technology
Apply AI to conversational data from mobile health platforms to capture patient priorities and inform care.
Global Health & AI
Develop and evaluate responsible AI for low-resource and multilingual settings, in partnership with health systems in sub-Saharan Africa and Canada.
Weekly AI in ID Seminar
Host a weekly seminar on AI in Infectious Diseases, bringing together clinicians, researchers and trainees to discuss new methods, evidence and applications.
About
The Global Health & AI Lab, led by Dr. Richard Lester, conducts rigorous research and data science to design, evaluate, and scale digital health interventions for the world’s most pressing health challenges. Our work bridges patient-engagement technologies, real-world clinical data, and emerging AI methods, with a focus on global infectious disease, maternal and child health, and underserved populations in British Columbia, Rwanda, Kenya, Uganda, and beyond.
Building on two decades of mobile health research, including the WelTel platform first validated in HIV care in Kenya (The Lancet, 2010), we now apply natural language processing, machine translation, and large language models to two-way patient–provider communication. These tools support clinical decision-making, surface emerging health issues at the population level, and extend access to care in low-resource and multilingual settings.
Through randomized trials, implementation science, and responsible AI development, our goal is to translate digital innovation into measurable impact on patient outcomes, equity, and health-system performance.
History of the programme
Where we work
Team
An interdisciplinary team of physicians, pharmacists, computer scientists and trainees. Select a member to read their full profile.
Works
Projects
Publications
All 68 PubMed-indexed publications of Dr. Richard Lester, each with a short summary.
Source: PubMed, Lester RT[au].
View on PubMed →
Partners
We work with health authorities, academic institutions, and a federally regulated digital health company.