Beyond the Wearable: Technology That Can Detect, Diagnose, and Treat Disease
4:00 PM-5:00 PM ET
Online
Wearable technologies, like smartwatches that track activity and rings that monitor sleep, have become part of everyday life. But what if the next generation of wearables could do more than monitor and report? What if devices could detect disease and even deliver treatment? Canan Dagdeviren, associate professor in the MIT Media Lab’s Program in Media Arts and Sciences, is developing technologies that are opening new possibilities for detecting disease and delivering care. Dagdeviren's work includes a wearable ultrasound patch for early detection of breast abnormalities, soft sensors that monitor organs like the bladder, and minimally invasive technologies that interact with the brain and other tissues. Much of this work is advanced through her Conformable Decoders research group, which creates flexible, stretchable devices that adapt to the human body. In the next MIT Alumni Forum, Dagdeviren will explore what comes after today’s wearables and how her research group is developing technologies that seamlessly integrate with the human body to catch disease earlier, monitor health in real time, and make medical care more precise and personalized.
Featured Speakers
Canan Dagdeviren
Associate Professor of Media Arts and Sciences; LG Career Development Professor of Media Arts and Sciences; Faculty Lead of Women’s Health Program (WHx); Affiliate Faculty Member of Institute for Medical Engineering & Science (IMES)
Canan Dagdeviren is a tenured associate professor and LG Career Development Professor in the MIT Media Lab’s Program in Media Arts and Sciences, where she leads the Conformable Decoders research group. She is also faculty lead for the MIT Media Lab’s Women’s Health Program. Her lab develops mechanically adaptive, body-integrated technologies that translate physical patterns from the human body and the natural world into meaningful signals, therapeutic action, and usable energy.
Born in Istanbul, Turkey, Dagdeviren earned her PhD in materials science and engineering from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where her research focused on patterning techniques and piezoelectric biomedical systems. Her doctoral work spanned flexible mechanical energy harvesters, multifunctional cardiac vessel stents, wearable blood pressure sensors, and stretchable biopatches for sensing skin mechanics.
David Rotman
Editor at Large, MIT Technology Review
Moderator
David Rotman is the editor at large at MIT Technology Review. A science and business journalist, he has written extensively on the economic and social impacts of emerging technologies. He joined MIT Technology Review in January 1998 as a senior editor covering nanotechnology. From 2005 to 2018 he served as MIT Technology Review’s editor, supervising the online and print editorial. He has a BS degree from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
About the MIT Alumni Forum
The MIT Alumni Forum is a thought–provoking online series that will bring you back to your years learning under the Great Dome. Each forum connects audiences with leading MIT experts who share their exciting research and provides an opportunity to engage with the speaker and ask questions.