Sensor-based systems for detecting social isolation and loneliness in elderly communities, fall risk evaluation from electronic health records, and multimodal gait and sleep sensing — developed during postdoctoral research at the University of Pennsylvania in collaboration with clinical and engineering teams.
Social isolation and loneliness among elderly adults carry health risks rivaling those of smoking and obesity, yet they remain difficult to detect and intervene upon at scale. This research thread, conducted at the University of Pennsylvania in collaboration with clinicians, nursing informaticists, and international teams, developed cyber-physical systems for passive, unobtrusive monitoring of older adults — enabling early detection of social isolation, prediction of fall risk from clinical data, and correlation of mobility signals with health outcomes.
A common theme is the clinician-in-the-loop design philosophy: sensor systems and data-driven models are built to support clinical decision-making rather than replace it, enabling scalable, actionable health interventions in community-dwelling and inpatient settings.
iCareLoop system: Proposes a closed-loop architecture where passive sensing of daily activity patterns feeds a machine learning pipeline, and outputs trigger clinician-mediated interventions — forming a complete loop from detection through actuation for gerontological social isolation and loneliness.
Passive ambient sensing of daily activity patterns (motion, sleep, social interaction proxies) in elderly homes, combined with machine learning, to predict loneliness scores and trigger clinician-mediated interventions.
Open-source database (FRED) derived from MIMIC-III integrating Morse Fall Scale records, physician notes, and medication data — enabling data-driven fall risk prediction and prevention research.
Pilot study exploring correlations between gait parameters measured by wearable sensors and bed movement signals from smart bed systems — toward unobtrusive, continuous mobility monitoring for older adults.
Cross-cultural deployment of sensing systems in US and Japan communities, studying loneliness indicators across different social contexts through a US–Japan research partnership.