Meeko Oishi
Wall Associate
Dr. Meeko Oishi’s research focuses on hybrid systems and control. She creates methods to provide guarantees of safety and performance in cyberphysical systems through careful design of controllers and user-interfaces (for systems that are not fully automated). Techniques her group has developed have been applied to aircraft flight management systems, automated anesthesia delivery, and space vehicle docking. Dr. Oishi also works in biomedical systems, using control theoretic techniques to identify potential biomarkers for early detection of disease, characterize disease subtypes, as well as provide insight into faulty feedback mechanisms in the brain.
Primary Recipient Awards
This workshop was held July 22 - 24, 2009.
Assistive technologies have potential to significantly improve the lives of people with disabilities by enabling independence and facilitating social connections, however research in assistive technologies creates several challenges. Some of these challenges include the inherent heterogeneity of the user population, privacy concerns in data gathering and analysis, and ethical concerns in the use of the technologies. Often, designing technology for individuals with disabilities is done without full attention to the myriad needs it must satisfy. One method to remedy the situation is to improve collaboration between technology designers, users, and researchers in disability health, such that systems are designed with the privacy, ethical, social, and clinical concerns in mind.
The proposed ICICS-PWIAS workshop aims to address the interdisciplinary gap that exists in assistive technology research, by bringing together researchers from computer science, engineering, social science, humanities, medicine, rehabilitative and clinical fields to address specific research topics and research themes of mutual interest and paramount importance to effective research in assistive technologies. The research topics span evaluation, sensing, networking, and mobility, while the research themes span customization, privacy, ethics, and integrated end-user involvement. We anticipate that an Exploratory Workshop in assistive technologies will capitalize upon a critical mass of researchers at UBC and take advantage of the momentum in funding opportunities currently available to strong teams of researchers in assistive technologies.