About: The Health Analytics Research Center works to improve the health of individuals and the health care system through data-driven methods and understanding of health processes.
Registration Request: Registration will be prioritized for Columbia faculty, affiliated scholars, and postdoctoral researchers. If you are a student or external guest, you may be waitlisted to attend until closer to the event date. All who submit on the below form will receive a confirmation email and a calendar hold if your registration is approved. Thank you again for your interest in attending!
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Date: Thursday, June 11
Location: Armen Avanessians Conference Room, Northwest Corner Building, 14th Floor
Presentation: 3:00 PM - 4:00 PM
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Speaker: Thomas Ploetz, Professor and Associate Chair of Graduate Studies, College of Computing, Georgia Tech
Computational Behavior Analysis: Smart Entities are Pushing the Boundaries of Digital Health
We live in an era in which the number of smartphones is now greater than the number of humans living on Earth. As such, the field of mobile and ubiquitous computing is transforming many--if not all--areas of our lives. With the next wave of technological breakthroughs now wearables, such as smartwatches but also head-worn devices, are becoming mainstream. This overall transformation has great potential for many application areas. Most prominently, it is now possible to continuously and unobtrusively record rich behavior data that can inform objective health assessments thereby serving as basis for improved care and treatment, and thus wellbeing.
The basis for effective behavior assessments are robust and reliable methods for human activity recognition -- more generally referred to as sensor-based Computational Behavior Analysis (CBA). From a technical perspective the analysis task translates into a time-series assessment problem, yet with a number of domain-specific constraints and requirements. In this talk I will explore these challenges first through contextualizing them to the state-of-the-art in the field. I will then give an overview of selected work from our group that is pushing the boundaries of CBA with specific focus on usable Digital Health. I will discuss practical aspects of such CBA applications and how they drive the design of technical approaches and real-world deployments.
Based on this foray into current research and applications of computational behavior analysis I will then discuss next steps and invite the audience to discuss next frontiers.
Speaker Bio:
Thomas Ploetz is a computer scientist with expertise and experience in Pattern Recognition and Machine Learning research (Ph.D. from Bielefeld University, Germany). His research agenda focuses on applied machine learning that is developing systems and innovative sensor data analysis methods for real world applications. Primary application domain for his work is computational behavior analysis, in which he develops methods for automated and objective behavior assessments in naturalistic environments. Main driving functions for his work are "in the wild" deployments and the development of systems and methods that have a real impact on people’s lives. Prior to joining Georgia Tech, he was an academic at the School of Computing Science at Newcastle University in Newcastle in Tyne, U.K., where he was a reader (associate professor) for Computational Behavior Analysis affiliated with Open Lab, Newcastle's interdisciplinary center for research in digital technologies.