Making his journey even more exciting is the opportunity to explore the ways technology impacts the world around him. The results are articles that use familiar and relatable humanities themes to explain complex scientific ideas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n
Learn more about Purdue’s 100% online Doctor of Technology program<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI always, always loved to write,\u201d Lai said. \u201cI have an interest in literature and art, so I ask, \u2018What innovation can art exposure help you understand so you can solve it?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lai\u2019s career has been in the banking, finance and healthcare industries. His most recent roles include director of data and analytics for a health data organization and a senior fellow with Purdue\u2019s Krenicki Center for Business Analytics and Machine Learning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In his March 2026 article<\/a> published in ORMS Today, Lai opens with William Shakespeare\u2019s \u201cA horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!\u201d to illustrate the urgency healthcare providers face during emergencies and how artificial intelligence can assist in uncovering hidden medical problems in patients.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Co-authored with Li-Lin Liang, an associate professor at the Institute of Public Health and the deputy director of the Health Innovation Center at Taiwan\u2019s National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Lai discusses the creation of \u201ca large language model tool\u201d to help triage patients, especially during large emergencies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That article follows his October 2025 treatise<\/a>, also published in ORMS Today, which calls for increased governance of the data shared with AI. Lai argues biased healthcare data will misinform the large language model (LLM) learning from it, leading to harmful side effects for patients and society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the section entitled \u201cSisyphus of AI and the Rock of Healthcare,\u201d Lai writes, \u201cHealth AI is the Mr. Godot in \u2018Waiting for Godot\u2019: We have been told that he will come very soon, but just not yet. Healthcare is a very complex field, and it is helpful to go back to the basics of knowledge acquisition\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n His third ORMS Today article, which is in the review process, explores LLMs and misinformation campaigns. It is based on his presentation to Academia Sinica, a top government research institution in Taiwan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lastly, he has an article under “resubmit with minor revision\u201d for Names, A Journal of Onomastics. It is about how people name their babies \u201cand how that is affected by the popular culture, by the Emmy Awards and that kind of stuff,\u201d Lai said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI like talking about different things,\u201d Lai (pictured left) said. \u201cWhen I talk to people, I hear good ideas and I think, \u2018I can use that.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lai discovered his passion for writing and interest in finance in 1994 while working for a Hong Kong newspaper. He heard about Purdue from one of his professors, and after attending a Purdue alumni event in Hong Kong, he knew he wanted to earn his Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree from Purdue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While working on his MBA, Lai joined a nationwide project examining the causes of bankruptcy in the US. His team reviewed bankruptcy filings in Cook County, Ill., and found medical bills played a major role. It created an interest in the healthcare sector, an industry Lai had never considered.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n At first, Lai continued his planned career trajectory. Robert Johnson, a former Purdue professor, told him about a consumer banking opening with a global financial institution in San Francisco. Lai fell in love with the weather, the food and the woman that became his wife. Over the years, he changed roles and financial institutions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then Lai said he had a midlife crisis. He moved to London and enrolled in Oxford University, where he earned two master\u2019s degrees: one in sociology and one in evidence-based healthcare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI want to go somewhere else, do something different,\u201d Lai said.<\/p>\n\n\n In the age of AI, a wide variety of insights from the diverse fields provided by the DTech program will be more helpful than a concentration. We can Google search for anything, but we need to know what to search for. This program is helping me to do that.<\/p>\n\n <\/blockquote>\n Aaron Lai<\/p>\n Purdue Doctor of Technology Student<\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n When he returned to the US, it was to work as a senior manager in the healthcare industry, analyzing and responding to trends in the market. One of the trends he followed closely was the rise of technology in healthcare, especially AI.<\/p>\n\n\n\n His curiosity led him back to Purdue in 2024. The DTech program\u2019s online modality allowed him to continue working full time in San Francisco while working on his degree. When his job as the director of data and analytics at a health data company was eliminated due to 2025\u2019s government funding cuts, Lai said it freed him to devote more time to studying, researching and writing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI like to say I have early retirement,\u201d Lai said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI plan to do more academic writing because I have more time. I’m planning to use the research I have already done for my thesis and make it into more academic writing. The goal I have set for myself is about one public speaking engagement or one publication per quarter and I think I can I hold it for the next 10, 20 years.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n As a DTech student, Lai is exploring how technology can improve medical outcomes. He is currently researching how to use AI for emergency disaster triage during earthquakes. That has inspired him to enlist with the California State Guard to help with disasters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lai said he hopes his doctorate will ultimately free him to write and teach virtually for a university while traveling the world. In the meantime, the DTech program is improving both his skills and opening new doors to fulfill his life goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Learn more about the Doctor of Technology at the program\u2019s website.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Few things delight Aaron Lai as much as the innovative dynamic created by unlikely pairings, especially the marriage of science and math to art and literature.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":6746,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[],"area-of-study":[18],"person":[74],"class_list":["post-10611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-student-success","area-of-study-technology-computer-science","person-students"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"rttpg_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/online\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/getty-image-10-1.jpg",1800,1013,false],"landscape":["https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/online\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/getty-image-10-1.jpg",1800,1013,false],"portraits":["https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/online\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/getty-image-10-1.jpg",1800,1013,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/online\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/getty-image-10-1-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/online\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/getty-image-10-1-300x169.jpg",300,169,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/online\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/getty-image-10-1-1024x576.jpg",1024,576,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/online\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/getty-image-10-1-1536x864.jpg",1536,864,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/online\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/getty-image-10-1.jpg",1800,1013,false],"rt_custom":["https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/online\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/getty-image-10-1.jpg",1800,1013,false]},"rttpg_author":{"display_name":"Marcia Sweet","author_link":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/online\/author\/sweet10\/"},"rttpg_comment":0,"rttpg_category":"Student Success<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"Few things delight Aaron Lai as much as the innovative dynamic created by unlikely pairings, especially the marriage of science and math to art and literature.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10611"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10611\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10615,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10611\/revisions\/10615"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10611"},{"taxonomy":"area-of-study","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/area-of-study?post=10611"},{"taxonomy":"person","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/person?post=10611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/online\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1651911491816.jpg\")
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