Wanting Mao portrait

Wanting Mao 毛婉婷

Second-year PhD student in Computer Science at UIUC · advised by Prof. Jim Rehg
AI for Healthcare
Self-Supervised Learning
Time-Series
GitHub

About Me

I'm a second-year PhD student in Computer Science at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, advised by Prof. Jim Rehg. Before my PhD, I completed dual B.S. degrees in Data Science and Applied Mathematics at UC San Diego.

My research focuses on AI for healthcare with a current emphasis on self-supervised learning for time-series Foundation Models. My goal is to translate foundation models for biosignals into safe, equitable, real-world impact. Borrowing Bayer's slogan, my motto is: Science for a Better Life.

News 📢

Jul 4, 2025 — Proud to be the organizer of the NeurIPS 2025 Time-Series for Health (TS4H) Workshop. Looking forward to meeting everyone in San Diego on December 7, 2025!

Research Highlights ✨

Prototype-based Multimodal Model figure
In Review at ICLR 2026
ProtoMM: Leveraging Shared Prototypes for a Multimodal Pulse Motion Foundation Model

ProtoMM introduces a prototype-based framework for multimodal self-supervised learning on time-series data. By clustering embeddings around shared prototypes, ProtoMM discovers common physiological states and achieves state-of-the-art performance across diverse tasks.

Paper Poster

Education 🎓

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC)
Ph.D. in Computer Science · Advisor: Prof. Jim Rehg
Aug 2024 - May 2029 (expected) · Champaign, IL
GPA: 4.0 / 4.0

University of California, San Diego (UCSD)
B.S. in Data Science & B.S. in Applied Mathematics · Magna Cum Laude
Sep 2020 - June 2024 · La Jolla, CA
GPA: 3.955 / 4.0 · Awarded Marshall College Honors and Provost Honors (2021-2024)

Academic Service & Leadership 💼

Organizer, NeurIPS 2025 Time-Series for Health (TS4H) Workshop · San Diego, CA · Dec 2025

Publications

Leveraging Shared Prototypes for a Multimodal Pulse Motion Foundation Model
Wanting Mao†, Maxwell A. Xu†, Harish Haresamudram, Mithun Saha, Santosh Kumar, James Matthew Rehg
In review at ICLR, 2026
† Co-first authors
Under Review Paper Poster
Pulse-PPG: An Open-Source Field-Trained PPG Foundation Model for Wearable Applications Across Lab and Field Settings
Mithun Saha†, Maxwell A. Xu†, Wanting Mao, Sameer Neupane, James M. Rehg, Santosh Kumar
Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies (IMWUT / UbiComp), 2025
† Co-first authors
Accepted Paper Code Weights

Selected Undergrad Research 🧪

  • Implemented eight distribution-testing algorithms (ERSP @ UCSD, Advisor: Prof. Daniel M. Kane), presented at the 2022 Undergraduate Research Symposium.
  • Developed a diffusion-based image generation system improving numerical accuracy and object count consistency (Capstone with Profs. Alex Cloninger & Rayan Saab).
  • Studied high-fidelity video generation algorithms with customized scenes (Tencent Games Rocket Plan, 2024).
  • Built a security-focused recommendation chatbot and presented findings at UCSD’s Summer Research Conference (Advisor: Prof. Imani N. S. Munyaka).

Contact

GitHub

Email: wmao8@illinois.edu