Mentorship and Student-Author Travel Grant for Wireless Health 2012 Conference

University Of Texas At Dallas, Richardson TX

Investigators

Abstract

The rapidly advancing field of wireless technologies and mobile health (mHealth) is likely to play an important role in the future innovations that will help in transforming healthcare to be more individual-centered with a focus on prevention and wellbeing. Yet this nascent field requires advances and innovations ranging from theoretical concepts to large scale implementation. Intellectual Merit: This project will provide funds to enable students to attend the conference. The participating students will benefit from exposure to computational thinking and advances in in wireless health technologies that utilize real-time data acquisition and inference to support just-in-time interventions. At the same time, they will also learn of the gaps in basic science as well as engineering that need to be addressed in order to achieve the anticipated benefits of the wireless technologies and mHealth. In addition, meeting the leaders in the fields will provide the students with models for selecting and addressing the key difficult problems that need to be solved. Finally, during the workshop, the participants will be meeting their fellow students, giving them an opportunity for scientific networking, so important in a rapidly advancing field. Broader Impact: Wireless and mobile technologies are likely to have significant societal impacts in a variety of domains. There are indications that these fields will likely contribute significantly to revolutionizing healthcare, from clinical trials to healthcare delivery. These technologies are already changing the social interactions among individuals and groups. Among the most important potential benefits of these technologies are their impacts on bringing healthcare and education to underserved populations. This is reflected in the data suggesting that mobile technology frequently provides the only way for underserved populations to connect to the Internet and interact with the healthcare system. Students working in the field will have the opportunity to accelerate these trends. To achieve these goals the proposer is planning to emphasize the recruitment of women and minority students to attend the symposium.