Locally Deployable Small Language Models for Emergency Department Decision Support: A Systematic Benchmark of Fine-Tuning Strategies
AMIA 2026 Annual Symposium, Dallas, TX, November 7 – 11, 2026.
The University of Texas at San Antonio
Yuanxiong (Richard) Guo
Associate Professor
Department of Information Systems and Cybersecurity
College of AI, Cyber and Computing
San Pedro II, Room 550A
About
Dr. Yuanxiong Guo is an Associate Professor in the Department of Information Systems and Cybersecurity at The University of Texas at San Antonio, with a courtesy appointment in the Department of Electrical Engineering. His research spans machine learning, trustworthy AI, and quantum computing and networking, with a particular emphasis on applications in healthcare, energy, and robotics. He received his Ph.D. in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Florida in 2014.
Dr. Guo is a Senior Member of both ACM and IEEE, and currently serves as an Editor for IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology and for IEEE Transactions on Machine Learning in Communications and Networking. His work has been recognized with endowed research awards at UT San Antonio, an AFRL Visiting Faculty Research Program Award, and a Best Paper Award at IEEE GLOBECOM. His research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, the National Institutes of Health, AFRL, NVIDIA, and industry partners.
Research Interests
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Machine Learning
Large language models, AI agents, federated and multimodal learning
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Trustworthy AI
Privacy, fairness, explainability, and safety
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Quantum Systems
Hybrid quantum-classical algorithms, distributed quantum computing, and quantum networks
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Applications
Digital health, renewable energy, and human-robot collaboration
Recent News
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Our collaborative project on efficient and trustworthy LLM fine-tuning received funding support from NSF.
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We are grateful to receive support from the NVIDIA Academic Grant Program to advance our research on generative and agentic AI.
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Congratulations to Tongnian Wang on successfully defending her dissertation and joining the Gary W. Rollins College of Business at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga as a tenure-track Assistant Professor!
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We are excited to launch a new Health Research Challenge project with our clinical collaborators at UT Health San Antonio, focusing on wearable sensors and AI for improved chronic disease management.
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We are excited to launch a new UTSA CONNECT project with Southwest Research Institute on AI-enabled combustion diagnostics and prediction for hydrogen engines.
Education & Experience
Education
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2014
Ph.D., Electrical and Computer Engineering
University of Florida
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2012
M.S., Electrical and Computer Engineering
University of Florida -
2009
B.E., Electronics and Information Engineering
Huazhong University of Science and Technology
Appointments
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09/2022 – present
Associate Professor
The University of Texas at San Antonio
Department of Information Systems and Cybersecurity -
01/2026 – 05/2026
Visiting Associate Professor
University of Arizona
Department of Management Information Systems -
08/2019 – 08/2022
Assistant Professor
The University of Texas at San Antonio
Department of Information Systems and Cyber Security -
08/2014 – 05/2019
Assistant Professor
Oklahoma State University
School of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Recent Publications
See Google Scholar for a comprehensive list of publications
Topology Optimization in All-Optical Switched Quantum Data Center Networks
IEEE International Conference on Quantum Computing and Engineering (QCE), Toronto, Ontario, Canada, September 13 – 18, 2026.
Handling Qubit Allocation and Topology Design at Scale for Distributed Quantum Computing
IEEE Transactions on Networking, September 2026.
Toward Fairness in Machine Learning Models for Predicting Treatment Retention and Premature Discontinuation in Medication for Opioid Use Disorder
Journal of Healthcare Informatics Research, August 2026.
LLM-Powered Personalized Glycemic Assessment in Type 2 Diabetes with Wearable Sensor Data
IEEE International Conference on Healthcare Informatics (ICHI), Minneapolis, MN, June 1 – 3, 2026.
Unifying Acoustic Features and Text with Multimodal LLMs for Neurodegenerative Screening
IEEE International Conference on Healthcare Informatics (ICHI), Minneapolis, MN, June 1 – 3, 2026.
FedKRSO: Communication and Memory Efficient Federated Fine-Tuning of Large Language Models
IEEE Conference on Computer Communications (INFOCOM), Tokyo, Japan, May 18 – 21, 2026.
Subgroup Identification of Disparities in Buprenorphine Discontinuation in Opioid-Use Disorder: A Virtual Twins Machine Learning Approach using Nationwide United States Claims Data, 2006-2022
PLOS Mental Health, March 2026.
Student Advising
Current Students
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Xiangxing Guo
PhD student in EE · 08/2023 – present
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Yifan Gao
PhD student in IT · 01/2025 – present
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Qingfeng Zhang
PhD student in IT · 08/2025 – present
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Jizhong He
PhD student in IT · 08/2025 – present
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Zezhao Guo
PhD student in EE · 08/2025 – present
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Isra Hilal
PhD student in IT · 08/2026 – present
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Claire Kyouar Kyoung
MD/MSAI student· 09/2025 – present
Primary advisor
Research mentor
Former Students
Primary advisor
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Tongnian Wang
PhD in IT · 08/2021 – 05/2026
First position: Tenure-track Assistant Professor of Data Analytics, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, USA
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Yu Zhang
PhD in ECE · 08/2019 – 08/2025
First position: Tenure-track Assistant Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science, Fisk University, USA
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Zhidong Gao
PhD in ECE · 08/2019 – 12/2024
First position: Tenure-track Assistant Professor of Computer and Information Technology, Shanxi University, China
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Paras Bhatt
PhD in IT · 08/2019 – 12/2024
First position: Tenure-track Assistant Professor of Information Systems, Supply Chain and Analytics, The University of Alabama in Huntsville, USA
Research mentor
Teaching
The University of Texas at San Antonio
- ISC 5203: Networking and Telecommunication Systems
- ISC 6703: Introduction to Data Mining
- IS 6733: Deep Learning on Cloud Platforms
- IS 6733: Big Data Technology
University of Arizona
- MIS 548: Introduction to Deep Learning
Oklahoma State University
- ECEN 5163: Introduction to Smart Grid
- ECEN 3113: Energy, Environment, and Economics
- ECEN 5193: Power Economics and Regulation
- ECEN 5060: Cyber-Physical Systems and Smart Grid
- ECEN 4013: Design of Engineering Systems
Awards & Honors
- 2024 UTSA Col. Jean Piccione and Lt. Col. Philip Piccione Endowed Research Award
- 2023 UTSA Cloud Technology Endowed Fellowship
- 2020 – 2022; 2024 – 2025 UTSA Dean’s Distinguished Research Award
- 2017 AFRL Visiting Faculty Research Program Award
- 2016 – 2017 IEEE INFOCOM Distinguished TPC Member
- 2011 IEEE GLOBECOM Best Paper Award
Professional Services
Journal Editorship
- Editor, IEEE Transactions on Machine Learning in Communications and Networking, 2026 – present
- Editor, IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, 2018 – present
- Guest Editor for Special Issue on Quantum-Enhanced Sensing and Communications for Next-Generation Wireless Systems, npj Wireless Technology, 2026
- Guest Editor for Special Issue on Information Centric Wireless Networking with Edge Computing for 5G and IoT, IEEE Access, 2018
Conference/Workshop Organization Committee
- Area Chair, Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS), 2026
- Organization Committee Chair, Workshop on Generative Artificial Intelligence for Smart and Connected Health (GenAI4SCH), co-located with IEEE/ACM CHASE, 2025.
- Track Co-Chair, 19th Annual International Conference on Privacy, Security and Trust (PST2022), Privacy Track, 2022
- Track Co-Chair, IEEE 94th Vehicular Technology Conference (VTC2021-Fall), Spectrum Management, Radio Access Technology, Services and Security, 2021
Professional Affiliations
- ACM Senior Member, 2025 – present
- IEEE Senior Member, 2019 – present
- INFORMS Member, 2021 – present
- AIS Member, 2021 – present
Grant Proposal Reviewer
- Panelist, National Science Foundation, 2017 – 2024, 2026
- Reviewer, Swiss National Science Foundation, 2025
- Reviewer, US Department of Energy, 2023, 2026
- International Peer Reviewer, Energy Market Authority of Singapore, 2020 – 2021
- External Reviewer, Research Grants Council of Hong Kong, 2017 – 2025
- Reviewer, Kentucky Science & Engineering Foundation, 2016
Technical Program Committee Member
View full list
- The 41st Annual AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-27), 2027
- IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications (INFOCOM), 2016 – 2026
- IEEE International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS), 2017, 2024 – 2025
- The 1st International Workshop on Cybersecurity and Social Sciences (co-located with ACM ASIACCS), 2022
- International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI), 2020
- IEEE Conference on Communications and Network Security (CNS), 2017 – 2019
- ACM International Conference on Future Energy Systems (e-Energy), 2017 – 2018
- IEEE International Conference on Communications, Control, and Computing Technologies for Smart Grid (SmartGridComm), 2015 – 2018
- IEEE ComSoc International Communications Quality and Reliability Workshop (CQR), 2017
- IEEE/CIC International Conference on Communications in China (ICCC), 2017
- IEEE International Conference on Computer Communication and Networks (ICCCN), 2016
- IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC), 2015 – 2017
- IEEE Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM), 2014 – 2016
- International Conference on Networking and Network Applications (NaNa), 2016
- IEEE International Conference on Computer and Information Technology (CIT), 2015
- IEEE International Symposium on Wireless Vehicular Communications (WiVec), 2014
Journal Reviewer
View full list
- IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics
- IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security
- IEEE Transactions on Computers
- IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems
- IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking
- ACM Computing Surveys
- ACM Transactions on Cyber-Physical Systems
- ACM Transactions on Privacy and Security
- IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications
- IEEE Transactions on Big Data
- IEEE Transactions on Cloud Computing
- IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing
- IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications
- IEEE Transactions on Communications
- IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology
- IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid
- IEEE Transactions on Power Systems
- IEEE Transactions on Sustainable Energy
- IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology
- IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics
- IEEE Transactions on Emerging Topics in Computing
- IEEE Transactions on Emerging Topics in Computational Intelligence
- IEEE Internet of Things Journal
- IEEE Networks
- IEEE Wireless Communications
- IEEE Communications
- IEEE Access
- IEEE Signal Processing Letters
- Computer Networks
- Applied Energy