Center for Personalized Health Monitoring | Institute for Applied Life Sciences

Microposts to Measure Cell Traction Force. One way to check that the posts are all standing up straight, and none are missing, is by seeing if a rainbow appears when they are held under the light! Sarah St. Pierre Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, College of Engineering IALS-UMass Core Facilities: Cell Culture | Device Fabrication | Light Microscopy

World-leading impact for advanced personalized health monitoring

The Center for Personalized Health Monitoring (CPHM) accelerates the development and commercialization of low-cost, multi-function, wearable, wireless sensor systems for personalized health care and biometric monitoring. The CPHM:

Conducts basic and translational research across the technical roadmap for advanced personalized health monitoring
Trains the future and current workforce in key skills needed for the emerging digital health industry
Develops and integrates new technologies in collaboration with industry and clinical partners that pave the way to commercialize innovations and promote economic development

The CPHM consolidates critical expertise from polymer science and engineering, computer science, kinesiology, and neuroscience as well as from other departments and collaborators such as the UMass Medical School and industry.

Through collaboration, the CPHM is establishing a robust, vertically integrated ecosystem enabling rapid design, prototyping, and human interface testing under real-world conditions. The center iterates sensor development from concept through validation, to advanced manufacturing of flexible sensor platforms.

In addition, the CPHM provides an industry collaborative facility wherein industry can work directly with CPHM staff and researchers to develop and validate next generation health monitoring technologies and products.

The focus of our research falls into the following themes:

CPHM Research Theme

Robotics for Human Health and Mobility

Our mission is to establish new and support ongoing fundable interdisciplinary collaborations that (1) use robotic tools to advance our understanding of human physiology and (2) innovate integrated robotics solutions to support human health, healthcare, and well-being.

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CPHM Research Theme

Aging Mechanisms

The topic area of the current theme is aging mechanisms. Understanding of aging mechanisms provides an opportunity for the development of therapies targeting non-communicable diseases – major causes of morbidity and mortality in the world. Today aging and longevity are arguably the hottest topics in medico-biological research which attract attention of academic researcher, innovators, investors, corporations, governmental institutions, and the media.

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CPHM Research Theme

Biosensors and Medical Technology

The topic of the this theme includes research in areas such as biosensors, wearables, mobile health, bioelectronics, flexible electronics, stretchable electronics, AI-driven health monitoring, human-computer interaction, physiological sensing, multimodal sensing, digital biomarkers, smart textiles and personalized medicine.

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CPHM Research Theme

Health Tech for the People

Technologies animated by artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) proliferate in nursing’s work and health care. Rapidly evolving AI/ML technologies demand ethics and research infrastructure responsive to this dynamic landscape. We founded Health Tech for the People (HT4P) to develop a critical tech ethics for more accountable, human-centered design of personalized and AI/ML-powered health monitoring technologies.

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CPHM Research Theme

Sleep and Circadian Science

Sleep is impaired in healthy aging and Alzheimer’s Disease (AD). Deficits include reduced total sleep time and sleep efficiency, reduced time in REM and slow wave sleep (SWS), and increased time in NREM1. Sleep spindles and slow waves, key sleep features associated with plasticity and cognitive function, also decline.

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