Projects

The Health Equity & Resilience Observatory (HERO) at UBC is dedicated to equity, trust, and resilience in crisis response. In times of crisis—from pandemics to climate emergencies—misinformation undermines trust in science and exacerbates health inequities. HERO brings together frontline clinical expertise, cutting-edge AI, and global health leadership to transform evidence into action. As Scientific Director, I integrate crisis informatics and data science to create next-generation intelligence for resilience. Research pillars: Trust & Crisis Intelligence (AI tools to detect and counter misinformation); Resilient & Equitable Health Systems; Equity-Driven Interventions. HERO innovations seed Counterforce AI—a unique pipeline from evidence to observatory insights to actionable systems deployed at scale.

Counterforce AI is a Trust Defense as a Service (TDaaS) platform designed to detect, map, and respond to AI-amplified threats against institutional trust in real-time. It represents a structural counter-industry response to the commercialized ecosystem of disinformation. Trust in critical institutions—health systems, defense agencies, and emergency responders—is under systematic attack; generative AI has removed cost and skill barriers to industrialized misinformation campaigns. Traditional detection tools are retrospective; Counterforce addresses what to do before damage occurs. Three pillars: SEE (real-time multimodal detection—MedContext deployed at 91.4% accuracy for medical misinformation); MAP (graph neural network analysis of narrative spread, in development); ACT (operational response including pre-bunking and counter-messaging, in development).

Private consulting, strategic guidance, and investment in global health, technology, and AI readiness.

Multimodal detection across open and social sources, achieving 91.4% accuracy in detecting medical misinformation—particularly authentic images paired with false claims. Evaluates contextual authenticity rather than content alone. Submitted to the Kaggle MedGemma Impact Challenge. Powers the SEE (real-time detection) pillar of the Counterforce AI platform.