The Personal Health Informatics and Rehabilitation Engineering (PHIRE) Laboratory focuses on understanding people with disabilities’ quality of life needs and seamlessly assisting them through science and technology. Our collaborative research team is currently working on:
- Studying health and physical activity patterns of people with disabilities in the community.
- Developing and applying novel physical activity monitoring and feedback technology, which when combined with behavioral programs would improve the health and physical activity of people with disabilities.
Lab director Shivayogi Hiremath is a rehabilitation science researcher with an interest in personal health informatics and rehabilitation engineering. The theoretical bases for his research program stem from the intersection of rehabilitation science and biomedical engineering, with a focus on both the development and application of new technologies to enhance the health and quality of life of people with disabilities. His doctoral training at the University of Pittsburgh involved studying physical activity patterns of individuals with spinal cord injury who use manual wheelchairs, towards developing and evaluating a physical activity monitoring system. His postdoctoral training at the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Medicine involved developing and evaluating neural decoders, personalized to individuals with upper limb paralysis, which translate modulated cortical activity towards controlling assistive technologies through direct brain-computer interfaces.
Learn more about the PHIRE Lab.
Director
