MS-ADAPT: Multi-Sensor Adaptive Data Analytics for Physical Therapy

Emilia Farcas, PhD, PI is Associate Research Scientist at UCSD's Qualcomm Institute, the San Diego division of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology. Her research interests are software-engineering for complex cyber-physical systems, requirements engineering and human-computer interaction, sensor integration and acquisition of self-report data, data models and analytics, modeling languages, architectures, system deployment and evolution, and quality evaluation frameworks.

She applied this broad expertise in various cyber-infrastructure projects at UC San Diego in the fields of health sciences and clinical trials. Since 2009, Dr. Farcas has been lead system architect on the NIH-funded CYberinfrastructure for COmparative effectiveness REsearch (CYCORE) project, where she led the design and implementation of the cyberinfrastructure supporting acquisition, storage, visualization, and analysis of sensor and self-report data for cancer trials. Recently, she was the PI on the NIH-funded Voice Assistant for Quality of Life and Healthcare Improvement in Aging Populations (VOLI) project, and has been researching how to design voice assistants to support healthcare needs, collecting Ecological Momentary Assessments with voice assistants, question answering NLP systems, and analyzing Electronic Health Records (EHRs).

Sara Gombatto, PT, PhD, PI of SDSU Subaward is a Professor of Physical Therapy at San Diego State University. She earned her MS in Physical Therapy from Ithaca College and her PhD in Movement Science from Washington University in St. Louis. She is a licensed Physical Therapist with 25 years of experience working with patients with musculoskeletal pain problems. Her research is focused on examining the mechanisms underlying chronic-recurrent low back pain, and development of interventions for treatment and prevention of low back pain.

Using information from a physical therapy examination, 3D movement analysis, mobile sensors, and MRI, she has developed and validated lumbar spine models for measuring posture and movement in people with low back pain, and has identified differences in movement characteristics between people with and without low back pain and among different subgroups of people with low back pain. In addition, her recent clinical research has focused on cultural adaptation of physical therapy and health systems materials and interventions to address disparities in management of chronic spine pain in minoritized populations. This research background has provided a solid foundation as a clinical scientist to collaborate on the development and implementation of new accessible sensor technologies and mHealth systems for addressing low back pain such as MS-ADAPT.

Kenneth Loh, PhD, Co-PI is the TaylorMade Golf Chancellor’s Endowed Professor in the Department of Structural Engineering at UC San Diego and previously served as the Department Vice Chair (2018-2021). He is the Director of the Active, Responsive, Multifunctional, and Ordered-materials Research (ARMOR) Lab and is the Director of the Jacobs School of Engineering, Center for Extreme Events Research (CEER). He is also an affiliate faculty member of the Materials Science & Engineering Program. He received his B.S. in Civil Engineering from Johns Hopkins University in 2004. His graduate studies were at the University of Michigan, where he completed two M.S. degrees in Structural Engineering and Materials Science & Engineering, as well as a Ph.D. in Structural Engineering in 2008. He started his Assistant Professor career in January 2009 in the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering at UC Davis, before joining UC San Diego in January 2016.

His research interests are in multifunctional and stimuli-responsive materials, tomographic imaging techniques, wearable sensors, active metamaterials, and soft material actuators applied towards solving problems related to human performance, structural sustainment, and human-structure interactions. In addition to his academic career, Dr. Loh is an Engineering Duty Officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve and a co-founder of a start-up company, JAK Labs, Inc.

Rose Yu, PhD, Co-PI is an Assistant Professor at the University of California San Diego, Department of Computer Science and Engineering. She earned her PhD in Computer Sciences at USC in 2017. She was subsequently a Postdoctoral Fellow at Caltech. Her research focuses on advancing machine learning techniques for large-scale spatiotemporal data analysis, with applications to sustainability, health, and physical sciences.

A particular emphasis of her research is on physics-guided AI which aims to integrate first principles with data-driven models. Among her awards, she has won Army ECASE Award, NSF CAREER Award, Hellman Fellow, Faculty Research Award from JP Morgan, Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Adobe, Several Best Paper Awards, Best Dissertation Award at USC, and was nominated as one of the 'MIT Rising Stars in EECS'.

Arun Kumar, PhD, Co-PI is an Associate Professor in Computer Science and Engineering and the Halicioglu Data Science Institute at the University of California, San Diego. He received his PhD in Computer Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2016. He is a recipient of an NSF CAREER Award, a Hellman Fellowship, and an IEEE TCDE Rising Star Award. His primary research interests are in data management and systems for ML/AI-based data analytics, with a focus on usability, scalability, resource efficiency, and ease of deployment.

He has built new scalable systems for deep learning, transfer learning, feature engineering, and other ML/AI workloads, as well as benchmarks for data preparation on automated ML platforms. Systems and ideas from his work have been used by researchers in public health studying sedentary behaviors using sensor data, in political science to analyze social media data, and shipped as part of products from, or used internally by, multiple cloud, Web, and database systems companies.

Kevin Patrick, MD, MS, Senior Personnel is an Emeritus Professor in the Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health. His research has been supported by the NIH (NCI, NIDDK, NHLBI), the National Science Foundation, the CDC, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and has focused on clinical trials, formative research, survey methodology, novel measurement technologies, behavioral interventions, and information technology.

He was Public Health Innovation Lead for the NIH Mobile Data to Knowledge (MD2K) Center of Excellence in mobile health research and Co-Chair of the Mobile Data Collection Planning Team for the 2015 NIH workshops on Building a Large US Cohort for Precision Medicine Research (now called the All of Us Study). From 1994-2013 Dr. Patrick was Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, during which time it became (by impact factor) the leading journal in public health in the US. Most recently Dr. Patrick helped lead efforts to conceptualize and create the Joan & Irwin Jacobs Center for Health Innovation at UC San Diego Health.

Job Godino, PhD, Senior Personnel is an Associate Research Scientist in the Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health at UC San Diego, where he serves as the Director of the Exercise and Physical Activity Resource Center. He also serves as the Scientific Director of the Laura Rodriguez Research Institute and Director of Quality Improvement and Innovation at Family Health Centers of San Diego, the largest federally qualified health center in San Diego. Dr. Godino received his PhD in epidemiology from the University of Cambridge and completed postdoctoral training in the epidemiology and biostatistics of aging at Johns Hopkins University.

The majority of his current research focuses on the development and evaluation of interventions that utilize mobile and wearable technology to promote healthy changes in physical activity, sedentary behavior, diet, and sleep for the prevention of chronic disease in populations with health disparities. He is also actively engaged in the development and evaluation of on- and off-body sensors that measure various components of human physiology and behavior, as well as systems that trigger active data collection in response to data that is passively acquired. The translation of these interventions and technologies into routine clinical practice is central to his roles at Family Health Centers of San Diego.

Elijah Wyckoff, MS, PhD Student is a Structural Engineering Ph.D. student at the University of California San Diego and is a member of the Active, Responsive, Multifunctional, and Ordered-materials Research (ARMOR) Lab, led by Prof. Ken Loh. Prior to this, he received his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Arizona State University in 2020, followed by his M.S. in Mechanical Engineering at the University of New Mexico (UNM) in 2022. At UNM, his research focused on wireless smart sensors, robotics, and augmented reality applications. During this time, he completed multiple internships with the Air Force Research Laboratory and received a fellowship from NASA’s New Mexico Space Grant Consortium.

Elijah's current research interest is in next-generation nanocomposite wearable sensors, with specific emphasis on human performance and sports biomechanics. His Ph.D. dissertation research aims to advance the effectiveness of physical therapy and rehabilitation by leveraging a wearable, fabric-based, nanocomposite strain sensor called Motion Tape, specifically, for the lumbar spine, low-back pain, and weightlifting.

Yasmin Velazquez is a Master's student in Exercise Physiology at San Diego State University (SDSU), working as a Graduate Research Assistant on the MS-ADAPT project under the mentorship of Dr. Sara Gombatto in the Rehabilitation Biomechanics Laboratory at SDSU. She graduated from Sacramento State with a bachelor's degree in Kinesiology, with an emphasis in Sports Medicine. For her master's research, she plans to develop and test methods for using "Motion Tape" to measure low back strain during functional activities in a free-living environment.

Yasmin grew up in small agricultural towns in both California and Mexico, and was the first of her generation to attend college. Stemming from this experience, she is driven by a desire to make a meaningful impact in the healthcare industry, advocating for accessibility and inclusivity. Yasmin's hopes to continue to pursue a career in Exercise Science research including the development of innovative technologies, with the goal of contributing to advancements in healthcare practices and patient outcomes.

Jared Levy is a first year computer science Master's student at the UC San Diego, specializing in artificial intelligence. He obtained undergraduate degrees in both computer science and applied mathematics from UC San Diego as well as worked as an Artificial Intelligence Scientist in Dallas, Texas for a year working on spatio-temporal problems. In his free time, Jared enjoys playing basketball, snowboarding, surfing, and watching movies.

Jay Barolo is a second year kinesiology student at San Diego State University. He is originally from the DC area. His focus is on health and fitness and plans to become a physical therapist or researcher in the field. He works as a Physical Therapy Aide over the summer. His research interests include optimizing performance, health, and quality of life for individuals ranging from regular people to elite athletes.

He is helping the MS-ADAPT project on data processing, analysis, creating coding pipelines, pilot testing, and writing manuscripts. He has also been working in a sports biomechanics and injury prevention lab with the SDSU Men's Basketball, Men's Baseball, and Women's Lacrosse teams. This project focuses on analyzing movement patterns, force production, and neurocognitive abilities to enhance players' health and performance.

Yixuan Li Yixuan Li is an undergraduate student in Computer Science at UC San Diego. He is originally from Beijing but lived in the DC-Maryland area for several years. His focus is on software engineering, and he has experience in web and mobile development. Yixuan has worked with several non-profits and school clubs to build web apps that support their missions. In his free time, Yixuan enjoys listening to music, playing video games, and lifting weights.

On MS-ADAPT, he is working on adapting the CYCORE infrastructure to support the new studies, data collection, and visualization.

Ben Johnson is an undergraduate student at UC San Diego studying Computer Science. He is from the LA area. He has experience with web and mobile development, and has worked on a few research projects including MorpheusQ (an iOS app to help diagnose Fetal Alcohol Syndrome) and CYCORE (Cyberinfrastructure for Comparative Effectiveness Research). He has also worked on robotics and embedded systems software projects.

On MS-ADAPT, he is working on adapting the CYCORE infrastructure to support the new studies, data collection, and visualization. His research interests include machine learning, human-computer interaction, and improving health and safety.

Audrey Lee, MS, Alumni is a Biomechanics Engineer with expertise in wearable sensors and sports performance. She has a M.S. in Bioengineering with a Biomechanics specialization from SDSU and two B.S. in Mechanical Engineering and Applied Physiology/Sport Management from SMU. Her experience includes leading qualitative and quantitative studies on wearable devices, analyzing data from motion capture systems, and conducting biomechanics research.

She has interned at prominent organizations like Brooks Running Co and the Nike Sports Research Lab, working on projects related to product assessment, advanced developments, and athlete performance analysis. Currently she is working as a Biomechanics Specialist at Tesla, combining both safety, ergonomics and comfort into seat designs. When she is not working on engineering stuff, she can be found utilizing her art degree as a part time graphic designer and children's book illustrator.

Spencer Spiegel, MS received his BA in sociology from the University of Southern California in 2011 and his MS in statistics from San Diego State University in 2024.

His role as a research assistant for the MS-ADAPT project includes scientific writing, programming, and statistical analysis. Outside of MS-ADAPT his career focus is data science and data engineering for the defense industry.