MRM & MAC - MARCS Research Meeting and MARCS Afternoon Colloquium 7th December 2021

Join us at the next MARCS Meeting as we host an eventful MRM and MAC program with talks from Professor Anthony Harris and invited guest Doctor David Silvera.

NOTE: We have been hosting hybrid  sessions (zoom + in-person) MRMs as we return to the campus. You can now attend MRMs in person at Bankstown Campus or Werrington South Campus.

Password marcs

PROGRAM

11am-12pm - MARCS Research Meeting

Topic: unWIRED - integrating mHealth devices into clinical care
Speaker: Prof Anthony Harris

Most clinical work still operates retrospectively with small amounts of information becoming available to the clinician on an irregular basis when contact is made by the patient telling them about past events. Recent innovations in digital health make a more dynamic interchange of clinically important information possible, however systems to access and understand this information are lacking in public mental health services.  The unWIRED project seeks to develop experience and capacity in digital health in a study of young people with severe mental illness in Sydney.  This presentation will describe the development of the scientific goals and infrastructure developed for this project.

12pm-1pm – MARCS Afternoon Colloquium

Topic: Towards Socially-Assistive Robotics in Health and Education
Speaker: Dr David Silvera, Australian e-Health Research Centre, CSIRO

A recent trend in robotics is the development of social robots to support healthcare service delivery. Social robots have been shown to be valuable teaching and therapy aids, encouraging positive behaviours, social communication and sensory processing in children and adolescents. Research has also shown positive impacts on psychological functioning in older adults, including a decrease in depressive symptoms and loneliness scores. This presentation will discuss some of the work we have done to increase our understanding on how social robots impact social interactions, and specifically how robots can be used to support healthcare service delivery.

David is a Senior Research Scientist at the CSIRO’s Australian e-Health Research Centre, the leading national research facility applying information and communication technology to improve health services for Australians. He is passionate about the transformation of healthcare through robotics and digital enhancements. He is a mechatronics/robotics researcher working in a variety of topics in sensing, human-robot interaction (HRI), data mining, and predictive analytics. He has significant experience is the design, development, delivery and evaluation of interactive technologies to improve healthcare service delivery and lifestyle. His specialties are in the areas of: socially-assistive robotics, Autism, the autonomous interpretation of human behaviour using machine learning techniques and tactile sensing for robotics applications. David has published multiple articles in leading refereed international journals, book chapters and international conference and workshops. He has created national and international collaborations and received multiple international awards.