Ali Ganjizadeh

About

Ali Ganjizadeh, MD, MBA

I build and evaluate AI for medical imaging, and I keep asking whether the result is real.

Today I’m a Senior Technical Product Manager at HOPPR, which builds foundation models for medical imaging. I work across the whole life of a model: where the data comes from, how it is de-identified, curated and labeled, what the model is asked to predict, and how it is trained, evaluated and deployed. I joined HOPPR as a research scientist in January 2025 and moved into product that September.

Evaluation is the center of my work. I build the systems that grade a model’s work, including automated graders and LLM-as-judge methods (where one AI model scores another), grounded in how clinicians actually judge a result, and I’ve contributed to published work on measuring medical AI, such as RadEval and RIDGE. I’ve also learned not to trust a good score until I know what the model actually saw: I once traced a model’s quiet loss of accuracy to a preprocessing step that flattened the image intensities a radiologist reads.

Before HOPPR I was a postdoctoral research fellow at the Mayo Clinic Radiology AI & Informatics Lab, where I still collaborate. I built tools that let researchers pull and curate imaging data for themselves, a grant-funded model for detecting prostate cancer recurrence on MRI, and language-model pipelines for extracting data from clinical reports.

I earned my MD at Tehran University of Medical Sciences, then worked as an emergency physician at Susangerd General Hospital in Khuzestan, Iran. Over the same period I was product manager at Neuronio, where we moved an FDA-cleared dementia-screening product from neurology clinics into primary care and grew its revenue sixfold. I also hold an MBA in data science and business analytics.

While in medical school I co-founded ventures in health and medical education, including a healthcare product consultancy that ran due diligence for investors, and a public-health school run as a policy simulation, which received the AMEE Patil Innovation in Teaching Award.

I’m Vice Chair of the AI Education Committee at the Society for Imaging Informatics in Medicine (SIIM), and I help develop AI standards guidelines with Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE), an initiative RSNA co-founded. I enjoy teaching clinicians and students how to judge an AI tool. Away from a screen, I’m usually on a mountain bike.

Experience

  1. Jan 2025 – nowHOPPR RemoteFoundation models for medical imaging, across the data and model lifecycle.
    • Senior Technical Product Manager Sep 2025 – now
    • Research Scientist Jan 2025 – Sep 2025
  2. Oct 2022 – nowMayo Clinic · Radiology AI & Informatics Lab Rochester, MNComputer vision, language models and informatics for radiology research.
    • Research Collaborator Jan 2025 – now
    • Postdoctoral Research Fellow Oct 2022 – Jan 2025
  3. Jan 2021 – Jul 2022Product Manager · Neuronio Tehran, IranMoved an FDA-cleared dementia-screening product from neurology clinics into primary care, and revenue grew sixfold.
  4. Nov 2020 – Jul 2022Emergency Physician · Susangerd General Hospital, Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences Susangerd, Khuzestan, IranStabilized critically ill and trauma patients, led rapid-response teams, and read X-ray, CT, MRI and ultrasound to guide acute decisions.

Ventures

  1. Mar 2016 – May 2020AVECEN Tehran, IranA product consultancy in digital health and healthcare services: due diligence for venture capital firms and mentoring for startups.
    • Product Consultant May 2018 – May 2020
    • Vice Chairman of the Board and Secretary General May 2017 – Mar 2020
    • Co-founder and Board Member Mar 2016 – Mar 2020
  2. Sep 2018 – Feb 2020Co-founder and Managing Director · MedLean Tehran, IranA monthly event series and a magazine, MedLeanMag, on new business ideas in digital health.
  3. Sep 2018 – Aug 2019Co-founder and Product Developer · REDXIRAn online course to reduce stigma and discrimination in healthcare, funded by a UNAIDS grant.
  4. Jan 2014 – Sep 2017Iran International Public Health Summer School (IPHS) Tehran and Isfahan, IranA seven-day game in which students play public-health specialists and work to improve their community's health through ten missions. It received the AMEE Patil Innovation in Teaching Award in 2018.
    • Board Member and Project Supervisor, IPHS 2017 Oct 2016 – Sep 2017
    • Board Member and Chief Executive Officer, IPHS 2016 Mar 2016 – Sep 2016
    • Board Member and Executive Director, IPHS Winter Camp 2016 Oct 2015 – Mar 2016
    • Board Member and On-Campus Training Coordinator, IPHS 2015 Oct 2014 – Sep 2015
    • Educational Assessment Officer, IPHS 2014 Jan 2014 – Sep 2014
  5. Nov 2010 – Jan 2013Co-founder · Marlik Institute of Innovation and Technology Rasht, IranA startup institute for designing and building new products and inventions.

Volunteering

  1. Jul 2023 – nowSociety for Imaging Informatics in Medicine (SIIM)
    • Vice Chair, AI Education Committee Jul 2026 – now
    • Member, Machine Learning Education Committee Jul 2023 – Jul 2026
  2. 2023 – nowMember · Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE), Radiological Society of North America (RSNA)Developing AI standards guidelines.
  3. Oct 2017 – May 2022Founder, Supervisor and Coach · Entrepreneurship Olympiad Team, Tehran University of Medical SciencesFounded and coached the university team for the annual championship.
  4. Feb 2014 – Oct 2016Students’ Scientific Research Center · Tehran University of Medical SciencesLed a five-year strategic plan for student research and product development. Helping Hands gave health professions students early exposure to the community and the social determinants of health.
    • Director of Research and Development in Policies Oct 2014 – Oct 2016
    • Member of the Central Council Apr 2014 – Jun 2016
    • Principal Investigator, Helping Hands project May 2014 – Mar 2016
    • Principal Investigator, DANA project Feb 2014 – Jun 2014
  5. Oct 2013 – Oct 2014International Federation of Medical Students’ Associations (IFMSA) · Iran, TUMS branch
    • Vice President of Internal Affairs Jun 2014 – Oct 2014
    • Local Public Health Officer Dec 2013 – Jun 2014
    • Vice Officer, Medical Education Committee Oct 2013 – May 2014
    • Member, Organizing Committee Nov 2013

Education

  1. Sep 2021 – Jul 2022MBA, Data Science and Business Analytics · Industrial Management Institute Tehran, Iran
  2. 2012 – 2020MD, Doctor of Medicine · Tehran University of Medical Sciences Tehran, Iran

Papers

Selected papers →

My selected papers are listed on the home page, and all of them are on Google Scholar.

Selected honors

  1. 2024Radiology Research Executive Committee Grant · Mayo ClinicAutomated detection of prostate cancer recurrence.
  2. 2019Best Student Project Award · 7th World Health Summit Regional Meeting
  3. 2018UNAIDS Developmental Grant · for REDXIR, a course to reduce stigma in healthcare
  4. 2018Patil Innovation in Teaching Award · Association for Medical Education in Europe (AMEE)

Get in touch

The best way to reach me is a message on LinkedIn or X (@magnooj).