Dr. Brian Telfer

During the past 15 years, consumer wearable monitors have progressed rapidly from counting steps to a host of proprietary activity and sleep metrics. The next generation of monitoring capability will provide much more health-related, actionable information. In this talk, Brian will give an overview of these upcoming technologies and the underlying biosignal processing techniques for analyzing activity and sleep, including several examples from MIT Lincoln Laboratory: 1) early detection of Parkinson’s Disease and other movement disorders, 2) risk stratification based on levels of visceral adipose tissue, an important health biomarker, 3) presymptomatic detection of infectious disease, 4) quantitative estimation of fatigue to optimize scheduling of shift workers, 5) early detection of exertional heat stroke. The first two applications are based on analyzing publicly available accelerometry datasets: the U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) with about 8,000 subjects and the U.K. Biobank with 100,000 subjects. Biosignal processing algorithms that have been considered range from straightforward baselines of steps and cadence and sleep fragmentation, to correlation structure algorithms adopted from the radar signal processing community, to deep learning. All of these case studies involve close collaborations between engineers and senior physiologists, clinicians and end users; Brian will share experience on what is required for a high-performing engineering and medical team. Brian will also offer perspectives on wearable sensing technology transfer, progressing from idea to impact, and innovating in the national and global interest, based on his career working for a U.S. National Laboratory.

Biography:

MIT Lincoln Laboratory, Lexington MA 1995-present, Senior Staff Member, Human Health and Performance Systems (Highest level of technical track, 10% of all PhD staff, equivalent to Full Professor)

Dr. Brian Telfer is a Senior Staff Member in the Human Health and Performance Systems Group at MIT Lincoln Laboratory, a National Laboratory for the U.S. Government that serves as a bridge between academia and industry. In this role, he provides technical leadership in applications relating to human performance and prehospital medical care. His expertise spans biosignal and image processing, medical ultrasound, radar signal processing, machine learning and artificial intelligence, system analysis, rapid prototyping and technology transition. He has a special passion for transitioning bioengineering technology that has been restricted to hospitals and research laboratories into field and home environments, fitting with the “hospital-at-home” theme.

Address:Houston, TX, United States