Want to create solid research on the latest mobile health or wearable platforms — but don’t know where to start?

Digital health research projects are challenging because of the cutting-edge nature of the technologies. Not only that, but successful research projects depend on interdisciplinary collaborations among technologists, engineers, designers, clinicians — and patients.

The five-day event is being funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Expenses will be paid for travel. Applications for this institute are due by Friday, April 3, 2015, and require several essays, CV, and a letter of support from the applicant’s Dean, Department Chair, or Employer.

Since mobile technologies have the power to assess and intervene in users’ behaviors, biological states, and even their environment, they are already being used in medical research.

However, creating good mobile health research requires coordination among traditionally siloed fields. Physicians, pharmacists, and others who want to craft the next big digital health project need to get input from computer science and engineering experts.

This event addresses this by bringing together computer scientists, user experience designers, clinicians, and other experts.

From the press release:

“To address these issues, the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) will conduct a National Institutes of Health-funded five-day training Institute. The Institute will bring together leaders in mobile technology and behavioral sciences to lead a cross-training event for early career investigators with interest in mHealth. Organized by Vivek Shetty at the University of California, Los Angeles, core faculty for the training include: Santosh Kumar, University of Memphis; Susan Murphy, University of Michigan; James M. Rehg, PhD, Georgia Tech; Donna Spruijt-Metz, PhD, University of Southern California; Mani Srivastava, University of California, Los Angeles; Steven Steinhubl, M.D, Scripps Translational Science Institute; and, Bonnie Zima, MD, University of California, Los Angeles. The training curriculum will cover the current state of the science in mobile technology computing and engineering, behavior change and clinical applications, and highlight the intersection among these areas for research related to health. Daily didactic sessions will target the major cross-cutting research issues. Afternoons will be devoted to small, interdisciplinary teams developing potential mHealth research projects, guided by multidisciplinary mentorship teams.”


For more information and application information, visit their website.