AAI-CCI-MHI Seminar on CPS

Speaker: Rose Faghih, Associate Professor New York University

Talk Title: Smartwatch-Brain Interface Architectures for Mental Well-Being and Productivity

Series: EE598 Seminar Series

Abstract: Smartwatch-like wearables have enabled seamless tracking of vital signs and physical activities. An unexploited capability is that the pulsatile physiological time series collected by wrist-worn wearable devices can be used for recovering internal brain dynamics. We design algorithms for a closed-loop brain-aware wearable architecture called MINDWATCH for tracking and regulating neurobehavioral states of arousal and performance. This closed-loop smartwatch-brain interface framework includes (1) an inference engine for recovering arousal-related autonomic nervous system (ANS) activations, (2) Bayesian state-space decoders for tracking cognitive arousal and performance states, (3) control algorithms for maintaining these neurobehavioral states within desired ranges, and (4) neurofeedback experiments for closing the loop via safe actuation. The methods are validated by analyzing experimental data as well as simulation studies. Results demonstrate a promising approach for tracking and regulating neurocognitive arousal and performance states through wearable devices. Since smartwatches can be used conveniently in one’s daily life, smartwatch-brain interface architectures have a great potential to monitor and regulate one’s neurocognitive stress seamlessly in real-world situations.

Biography: Rose T. Faghih is an associate professor of Biomedical Engineering at the New York University (NYU) where she directs the Computational Medicine Laboratory within the NYU Langone Health's Tech4Health Institute. She received a bachelor’s degree (summa cum laude) in Electrical Engineering (Honors Program Citation) from the University of Maryland, and S.M. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science with a minor in Mathematics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She completed her postdoctoral training at the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at MIT as well as the Department of Anesthesia, Critical Care and Pain Medicine at the Massachusetts General Hospital. Rose is the recipient of various awards including a 2023 National Institutes of Health (NIH) Maximizing Investigators' Research Award for Early-Stage Investigators, a 2020 National Science Foundation CAREER Award, a 2020 MIT Technology Review Innovator Under 35 award, and a 2016 IEEE-USA New Face of Engineering award. In 2020, she was featured by the IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine as a “Woman to Watch”. She is on the editorial board of PNAS Nexus by the National Academy of Sciences and IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering. Her research interests include wearable technologies, and medical cyber-physical systems, as well as neural and biomedical signal processing.

Host: Pierluigi Nuzzo

Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248

Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Ariana Perez