Supporting Student Participation and Distinguished Speakers in the Biomedical Engineering Research Community for IEEE International Conference on Digital Health 2021

This proposal provides support for students, mentors, speakers, and postdoctoral attendees for professional development activities in conjunction with the IEEE International Conference on Digital Health (ICDH). ICDH and its associated activities will take place virtually, between September 5 and 10, 2021. The funds will be used to fund about 40 students’ registration fees, research competition prizes, and small stipends for faculty mentors, distinguished speakers, and postdoctoral scholars, with the goal of providing high-quality mentoring experiences and broadening participation in the conference to include more members of groups historically underrepresented in STEM fields.

Doing this will serve both societal goals around broadening participation, enrich the intellectual diversity of the conference, improve dissemination of the latest results around digital health to a wider population, and further the training of the next generation of researchers interested in digital health.

The mentoring will be structured around two main activities. The first is a research project-based competition targeting biomedical engineering and healthcare projects in the domains of diabetes, blood pressure management, cancer management, and independent living for older adults. Graduate students (and postdocs, on a case-by-case basis) will apply to conduct projects of their choice in the competition as either individuals or small teams, with the competition advertised widely including to minority-serving institutions.

Accepted project proposals will be chosen by a panel of judges; these proposers will participate in a one day research workshop and presentation competition where they will receive feedback and mentoring from the panel of judges. Participating students will also have half-day virtual mentoring sessions guided by distinguished faculty speakers with expertise in the focal areas of the competition, in which students and mentors will collaboratively explore research challenges in the areas above.

The funding will also support participation from experts that will broaden the ICDH in two conference-wide panels on the topics of AI-supported cancer and cardiology treatment.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.