Who am I

I am Rui Xu, a PhD candidate at Cardiff Business School (Data Lab for Social Good). My research focuses on integrating large language models (LLMs) into online health services to create a more efficient, cost-effective, and user-centred healthcare system. In addition, I examine how expert intelligence (clinical expertise, operational knowledge, and policy insight) can be combined with LLM capabilities to generate actionable, evidence-based recommendations for healthcare policy and system design.

I work closely with supervisors and collaborators across academia, industry, and clinical practice, and I enjoy engaging in interdisciplinary teamwork that bridges technical innovation with real-world healthcare challenges. This collaboration helps ensure that my research remains both scientifically rigorous and practically impactful.

Education

  • PhD, Cardiff Business School — LLMs & Online Health Operations Management (ongoing)

Research focus / PhD project

My PhD explores how human expertise and LLMs can be combined to improve the quality and efficiency of online health services. I investigate how clinical expertise, operational knowledge, and policy insight can be systematically combined with advanced LLM capabilities to enhance decision support, streamline administrative processes, and improve patient–provider interactions. Rather than treating LLMs as a replacement for expert judgement, my work examines how the two can complement each other in tasks such as digital triage, remote consultations, and patient communication.

Supervision team

Funder

Cardiff University - China Scholarship Committee (CSC)

Teaching & roles

  • Graduate tutor (Cardiff Business School).
  • Student Member, The Operational Research Society (The OR Society)

Technical skills

  • Languages & tooling: R (tidyverse, tsibble, fable), Python (pandas, mlforecast), Quarto, Git/GitHub, LaTeX
  • Reproducibility & deployment: Quarto websites, GitHub Actions