Current Research Focus
“How does human behavior impact biology and in turn, health. Conversely, how does biology impact our behavior.“
The above questions are easy to pose, but very challenging to answer. In fact, in most cases, we still have to invent the tools and methods to quantitatively understand the bi-directional behavior-biology pathways. We work closely with clinical partners and behavioral scientists – a highly collaborative process that is allowing us to develop completely new research directions.
Bio-behavioral Sensing: Example ongoing research directions include methods to measure individual and group habits, loneliness and social behaviors. See some examples on Scalable Health.
Mobile Bio-imaging: To measure biology on-the-go, we are inventing computational microscopes that can “see below the skin” and will become the basis for next-generation of wearables and medical devices.
Mathematics for Behavioral Interventions: The above two research directions convert physical reality, behavior and biology, into measurements. We are exploring methods to model nuances of human behavior and develop foundations for data-driven interventions that are guided by theories of behavior.
Recent Research Directions
Pulmonary Conditions: Pulmonology was our first foray into health. That research led to our first spinoff, Cognita Labs, that has developed two FDA-approved products for world’s first method to measure inhaler competence and a handheld lung function testing using forced oscillometry technique. Our research on inhaler use taught us that human behavior should not be treated as a nuisance but as a necessary design requirement.
Retinal Imaging: We spent a few years developing a hand-held retinal imager, which could image the eye without dilation. That led to the second spinoff from the lab, OcuCheck.
Digital Gym: As an ambitious project, we wanted to track every exercise performed in the Rice Gym, automatically. The project generated many ideas and one of them led to our third spinoff, CherryPick.