About
I am a DPhil Student at the University of Oxford and passionate about answering the question: How do we gather high-quality data and extract valuable information to answer important questions?
You can contact me here.
More info
I like to think of statistics as the honest interpretation of data, even when the honest interpretation is less catchy than the story we might want to tell. Whether we're fitting models to reality or trying to fit reality to our models is worth thinking about. The latter defeats the point, though it is often more marketable.
At Oxford, my work focuses on modeling the co-distribution of Malaria and Schistosomiasis. This involves a lot of time thinking about generalized additive "smooth" models and analyzing satellite imagery in various geometric configurations. I'm part of the SchistoTrack cohort, supervised by Goylette Chami and Christl Donnelly.
Previously, under the supervision of Frauke Kreuter in Munich, I worked on the rather unfashionable problem of simply asking good questions. Understanding that people would rather click boxes than type thoughtful responses often matters more than any sophisticated model.
This led to several engineering projects to modernize data collection:
- Automated Telephone Surveys with 60 Decibels (20,000+ interviews and counting, now scaling in emerging markets) — case study
- Adaptive Interviewers with LMU Munich to turn static surveys into conversational agents.
- AVA, AI vaccination assistant for patients with mild cognitive impairment. Registered RCT, funded by BMBF. [Trial registry]
I'm always happy to discuss research ideas and look forward to new collaborations.
Publications
2025
- Shared risk factors for malaria and schistosomiasis co-infection: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Lang, M. M., Lyne, B., Donnelly, C. A., Chami, G. F.
- Non-linear age dynamics of malaria infection and fine-scale environmental exposure in rural Uganda. Lang, M. M., Tuhaise, V., Kafuko, P., Nakato, A., Mohamed, A., Nabatte, B., Kabatereine, N. B., Donnelly, C. A., Chami, G. F.
- hexsmoothR: Hexagonal Grid Smoothing for Satellite Data. Lang, M. M. Presented at IDDConf 2025
- Clinical outcomes associated with schistosome infection and alcohol use: a systematic scoping review. Lyne, B., Lang, M. M., Lewington, S., Chami, G. F.
- AVA – Study protocol for an AI-supported vaccination assistant to improve vaccination rates in patients with mild cognitive impairment in primary care. Sanftenberg, L., Bader, F., Bundschuh, T., Lang, M. M., Würschinger, Q., Kreuter, F., & Gensichen, J., Poster at 19th Vaccine Congress 2025
- AVA (AI-supported vaccination assistant) - Shared decision-making to improve vaccination rates in patients with mild cognitive impairment in primary care. Bader, F., Sanftenberg, L., Bundschuh, T., Lang, M. M., Würschinger, Q., Kreuter, F., & Gensichen, J., 59th Congress for General Medicine and Family Medicine 2025
- Telephone Surveys Meet Conversational AI: Evaluating a LLM-Based Telephone Survey System at Scale. Lang, M. M., Eskenazi, S., Accepted at AAPOR 2025. [Case study]
2024
- AI Conversational Interviewing: Transforming Surveys with LLMs as Adaptive Interviewers. Wuttke, A., Aßenmacher, M., Klamm, C., Lang, M. M., Würschinger, Q., & Kreuter, F., Accepted at 80th Annual AAPOR Conference 2025 & NAACL LaTeCH-CLfL2025
- Pytector. Lang, M. M. A Python package for detecting prompt injection.
- Financial Times Chart Doctor Visual Vocabulary in German. Lang, M. M., & Smith.
2023
- Time Series Analysis of Climatological and Hydrological Low Water Drivers in Bavaria - Climex II. Hobelsberger, C., Kleinlein, L., Lang, M. M., Meier, T., Paschan, N., Schernich, J., Böhnisch, A., Sasse, A., Funk, H., & Küchenhoff, H. Accepted at IWSM Dortmund 2023.
Talks
2025
- Fine-Scale Environmental Risk Mapping and Non-Linear Age Dynamics of Malaria Infection in rural Ugandan Communities, Infectious Disease Dynamics Conference (IDDConf), Ambleside, UK
- Using AI Phone Agents to conduct impact research on a large scale, ID Insight
2024
- Transforming Surveys with AI Conversational Interviewing, University of Zurich, Digital Society Initiative
- Using Chatbots as Interviewers, New Directions: Bridging Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Survey Research at SurvAI-Day, University of Maryland
- Featured: IASS Webinar 42: Leveraging AI for Survey Research by Frauke Kreuter
2023
- Analysis of Climatological Drivers of Low-Flow Events in Hydrological Bavaria, Turing Institue ECR Connect 2023, Queen Elizabeth II Centre, London
- Goodbye, Endless Feedback Forms. Hello, SurveyGPT!, OxAI Conference, 2023
Projects
Ongoing
- Malaria-Schistosomiasis co-distribution – Modeling disease co-infections in rural Uganda using satellite imagery and spatial statistics. DPhil project with SchistoTrack Group.
- AVA – AI vaccination assistant for patients over 60 with mild cognitive impairment. Lead developer of the voice agent architecture. Registered RCT, BMBF-funded. [LMU study page] [Trial registry]
- AI Telephone Surveys – Automating telephone surveys with conversational AI for 60 Decibels. Lead developer of the end-to-end architecture. 20,000+ interviews and counting, now scaling in emerging markets. [Paper] [Case study]
Open Source
- hexsmoothR – R package for hexagonal grid smoothing of satellite data
- Pytector – LLM prompt injection detection Python package
- RAG-nificent – Chainlit RAG application with Pinecone pipeline
- cuda-gis-smoothing – CUDA-accelerated GIS smoothing algorithms
- timeglobe – Like worldtimebuddy.com but awesome
Awards & Funding
- Oxford Population Health Scholar, October 2024 - Present
- AAPOR Student Conference Award 2025
- Vapi Startup Program, 2025
- BayFoNet – AI Voice Agents for vaccine uptake, 2025
- Early Career Researcher Grant, Primary Health Care Foundation Munich, 2025
- St. Cross College Travel & Research Grant, 2024, 2025
- Konrad-Adenauer-Foundation Scholar, 2020 - 2024
My research is graciously funded by Oxford Population Health.
Teaching & Writing
- NDPH MSc Statistics Module (R Facilitator)
- An Introduction to Spatial Epidemiology using R – course material
- Fast Spatial Indexing with Morton & Hilbert Curves
- FT Chart Doctor Visual Vocabulary (German translation)
Contact
Max Melchior Lang
Big Data InstituteOld Road Campus, University of Oxford
Oxford OX3 7LF, United Kingdom
Email: max.lang[at]stx.ox.ac.uk
ORCID: 0009-0004-6815-5321
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Max Melchior Lang
Big Data Institute
Old Road Campus, University of Oxford
Oxford OX3 7LF, United Kingdom
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E-Mail: max.lang@stx.ox.ac.uk
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Max Melchior Lang
Big Data Institute
Old Road Campus, University of Oxford
Oxford OX3 7LF, United Kingdom
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