Professor Sideris works on integrated circuits and electromagnetics for biomedical applications and wireless communications (PHOTO CREDIT: USC Viterbi)
Constantine Sideris, USC Viterbi assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, received a 2023 Young Investigator Program (YIP) Award from the Office of Naval Research. One of only 25 researchers nationwide to receive the award, Sideris will receive a grant of $750,000 over a three-year period to support his work.
“ONR, and the Naval Research Enterprise as a whole, is committed to reimagining naval power,” said Chief of Naval Research Rear Adm. Lorin C. Selby. “In order to achieve this, we need to attract the best and brightest scientists and engineers from across academia…The Young Investigator Program does just that, and I am excited to announce the recipients for 2023.”
Sideris’s award-winning project, entitled “Magnetic-Induction Based Multi-Modality Wearable Sensor Network for Continuous Activity and Health Monitoring,” entails developing technology to enable and realize a fully wireless on-body wearable sensor network. The network aims to perform real-time motion tracking of the wearer as well as sense physiological markers and biomolecular indicators of stress.
“Wearable devices existing today such as the Apple Watch, Fitbit or Aura Ring all focus on a single device located at one point on the body,” said Sideris, “We seek to break past the limitations of a single node and collect information from across the whole body. The nodes will communicate and coordinate with each other completely wirelessly.”
Additionally, all the recorded information can be processed by machine learning algorithms and used to determine the wearer’s health status, potentially detecting concerns such as injuries before they become serious.
The ONR YIP is a highly competitive and prestigious early-career award program in which prior academic achievement and potential for significant scientific breakthrough are key elements of the evaluation criteria. It is no wonder Sideris’ project was selected. As he explains, “My research group works on integrated circuits and electromagnetics for biomedical applications and wireless communications. In the biomedical devices space, we strive to develop new technologies such as wearable devices, point-of-care biosensors and implantable and ingestible devices which can detect and cure many different types of health conditions and diseases. We envision a future in which electronics have a key role in medicine and can help improve healthcare and quality of life.”
Published on January 24th, 2023
Last updated on May 16th, 2024
