Category Archives: ida

Dec 2008 TRIL TTP – Tenure Success and Complete!

TRILMy tenure as Principal Investigator for the TRIL Technology Platform team is now drawing to a close. It’s been my great pleasure to have helped lead this excellent interdisciplinary team over the past 2 year period. Along with Professor Paddy Nixon of UCD and Michael McGrath, co-Principal Investigator from the Intel Digital Health Group we have grown this small team by over 50%. This growth has been to meet the needs of the clinical strands due to increasing levels of activity and secondly to increase the level of capabilities which can be utilised by the strands.

The function of the TTP is to provide TRIL with its technology research, interaction design capabilities and the software and hardware tools which support the research activities of the clinical strands namely Falls, Cognitive and Social. In the development and provisioning of these tools the TTP has adopted a philosophy, where possible, of a re-usable, open, modular platform to support the needs of the TRIL researchers and the wider research community. This has resulted in the development of the BioMOBIUS research platform. This platform is a combination of hardware, sensors, software and a graphical development environment that enables engineers and researchers to rapidly deploy technology solutions for biomedical research applications.
Some highlights of my tenure as TTP PI with our team have included:

  1. The release of BioMOBIUS research platform in April 2008 to the research community
  2. The growth of the TTP team by 50% and the relocation of this team to the research environment of the Complex and Adaptive Systems Laboratory UCD
  3. The proposal, planning and delivery of 3 international workshops: Intel research Amberglen, Portland, EMBS Conference, Vancouver, Canada, University College Dublin with conjunction with the EMEA Research conference
  4. The initiation of the specification process of TRIL clinical and central infrastructure setup
  5. The deployment of technology into homes to support trials by the three clinical strands
  6. The support of technology requirements for successful start-up of the TRIL clinic in St James’s
  7. The submission of Journal and Conference papers and the publication of workshop papers.

I leave the TTP knowing that I we have a stronger and more vibrant team of researchers, engineers, interaction designers, postdocs, hardware engineers and managers than when I arrived in 2007. As I move onto two new major research initiatives with national and international collaborators I wish all the members of TRIL all the very best going forward.

Jan 2008 TRIL Centre IDA Review

Tril logo

Along with my co-Principal Investigators in the TRIL Centre (Technology Research for Independent Living) we presented to an external review panel on our work to date and plans for 2008 across the 5 strands within TRIL. I presented on the TRIL Technology Platform (TTP) which is headed up by Michael McGrath (Intel), Paddy Nixon (UCD) and myself Aaron Quigley (UCD).

I’ve only recently joined this team but I was very proud to present the outcomes of the TTP work to date. Across the strands the team have made great strides in clinical research, IT research, ethnographic research and developments targeted at key areas in ageing. Ageing is both a social and a biological process where I like to focus on the challenges, opportunities and excitement which it presents rather than the typical view of disconnection and decline.

The TRIL Centre is a coordinated collection of research projects addressing the physical, cognitive and social consequences of ageing, all informed by ethnographic research and supported by a shared pool of knowledge and
engineering resources.

Nov 2007 Appointed PI, TRIL Technology Platform Strand

Myself and Prof. Paddy Nixon are the two new Co-Principal Investigators into the TRIL Technology Platform Strand with a team of about 7 currently based in Engineering. TRIL represents a total investment by Intel and the IDA of around $30 million in the Technology Research for Independent Living Centre (TRIL). In the coming months we will be having a series of events to highlight our research to the Technology Platform Strand team and for them to showcase their impressive work to us here in the SRG and CSI.

Past News Item http://www.ucd.ie/news/feb07/020107_ageing_research.html