Franny Dean
Franny Dean
University of California, Berkeley
University of California, San Francisco
About

I am a PhD student at UC Berkeley (and UCSF), where I work with Ahmed Alaa and Ziad Obermeyer. I obtained a BA in (pure) mathematics from Williams College in 2019, where I got to study tropical algebraic geometry 🌴 with Ralph Morisson (pure math). After Williams, I worked under Lisa Force, modeling global cancer trends 🌍 with the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation through 2025 (applied stats, ML). I started at Berkeley as a mathematics PhD student in 2021, obtained an MA in mathematics in 2024, then transferred to Computational Precision Health (applied ML). I am grateful for the support of the NSF-GRFP since 2022.

Email: frances_dean [at] berkeley [dot] edu
Office: Hawk Hill
Office Hours: None (Fall 2026)
Pronouns: she/her/hers
A Sparse GitHub: Here

Research

Current:

  • Understanding the impact of cancer and its treatments on cardiovascular health 🫀, 🐁.
  • Thinking about causal inference → with AI surrogates.
  • Building deep learning models with ECGs ⚡.
Past (-> See Google Scholar Link):
  • Previous researcher with Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, St Jude Children's Research Hospital.
  • Previous graduate student Berkeley Department of Mathematics.

Teaching

Spring 2025: GSI for PH 132: Artificial Intelligence for Health and Healthcare with Ziad Obermeyer.

Summer 2023: Instructor of Record for Math 110: Abstract Linear Algebra.

Spring 2022: GSI for Math 54: Linear Algebra and Differential Equations with Alex Paulin.

Fall 2021: GSI for Math 54: Linear Algebra and Differential Equations with Katrin Wehrheim.

Misc.