Research Themes

Active Sensing
These projects involve assessments that require people to perform a particular task in order to learn something about their health.

Passive Sensing
These projects involve the use of sensors to detect digital health biomarkers without requiring direct involvement from the people being monitored.

Design
These projects involve studying people's experiences as they interact with health-related technologies.
Ongoing Projects

Context-Aware Alarms
Project Lead(s): Ian Ruffolo
Goal: To reduce alarm fatigue in hospitals, by using physiological sensor data combined with electronic health records to create smarter alarms.
Theme(s): Passive Sensing
Skill(s) Involved: Digital Signal Processing

Pre-Consultation Chatbots
Project Lead(s): Brenna Li
Goal: To leverage chatbots as a way of gathering background information before face-to-face interactions between doctors and patients.
Theme(s): Design
Skill(s) Involved: Interface Design, Qualitative Methods

Virtual Reality for Cognitive Exams
Project Lead(s): Andrii Lenyshyn
Goal: To improve upon traditional paper-based cognitive assessments like the Flanker test with virtual reality.
Theme(s): Active Sensing
Skill(s) Involved: Interface Design, Statistics

Respiratory Assessments Through Speech Analysis
Project Lead(s): Sejal Bhalla, Salaar Liaqat
Goal: To identify symptoms related to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in speech extracted from continuously recorded smartwatch audio.
Theme(s): Passive Sensing
Skill(s) Involved: Digital Signal Processing, Statistics, Machine Learning

Earbud-Based Cardiac Assessment
Project Lead(s): Ken Christofferson
Goal: To assess heart health using audio transduced in the ear canal.
Theme(s): Active Sensing
Skill(s) Involved: Digital Signal Processing, Machine Learning

Supporting Menstrual Health Tracking
Project Lead(s): Blue Lin
Goal: To create accurate, inclusive, and accessible menstrual trackers through passive physiological monitoring and user-centered design.
Theme(s): Passive Sensing, Design
Skill(s) Involved: Interface Design, Statistics, Machine Learning, Qualitative Methods

Hyperspectral Retinal Imaging with Smartphones
Project Lead(s): Dhruv Verma
Goal: To transform the smartphone into a hyperspectral ophthalmoscope for screening cases of retinal hypoxia.
Theme(s): Active Sensing
Skill(s) Involved: Computer Vision, Hardware