Dr. Joseph Liao is the Kathryn Simmons Stamey Professor and a professor of urology Stanford University. Dr. Liao is a board-certified urologic surgeon and a physician scientist who is nationally recognized for his contributions in optical imaging and image-guided surgery of urological cancers, and development of urine-based precision diagnostics for bladder cancer and urinary tract infections. Fellowship-trained in endourology and minimally invasive surgery, his clinical practice focuses on care of patients with early-stage high risk urothelial and prostate cancer.
Dr. Liao graduated with honors from Harvard College and earned his medical degree from Stanford School of Medicine. He completed his urology residency and clinical fellowship at UCLA Medical Center and a research fellowship at UCLA School of Engineering. He joined the faculty in the Department of Urology at Stanford in 2006 and currently serves as vice chair for academic affairs, director of research, and co-director of the endourology fellowship. For 15 years, he served as the chief of urology at VA Palo Alto Health Care System. Dr. Liao is a member of Stanford Bio-X, Cancer Institute, Center for Artificial Intelligence in Medicine and Imaging, and Canary Center for Early Cancer Detection.
Dr. Liao’s scholarship focuses on development of precision diagnostics and therapy for major urological diseases including bladder cancer, urinary tract infections, and kidney stone disease. His multidisciplinary laboratory interfaces genomics, imaging science, data science, and clinical medicine. He has served as the principal investigator on several NIH R01’s on molecular imaging, liquid biopsy, and AI-augmented surgery for bladder cancer; as well as development of integrated biosensors for rapid uropathogen identification and antimicrobial susceptibility testing. He has authored over 180 publications in top journals including Science Translational Medicine, Nature Medicine, Cell, Cancer Cell, PNAS, JAMA Surgery, and European Urology, and served as a reviewer on over 30 NIH study sections. Dr. Liao is committed to the training of next generation of physician scientists and researchers and directs the K12 Urology Research (KURe) career development program at Stanford. Many of his over 50 students and trainees are leaders and emerging leaders in academia and industry.
Dr. Liao is an elected member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation. He is active in major national urology organizations and formerly served as the president of the Engineering and Urology Society and member of the board of the directors for the Endourology Society.
