Seminar: Designing and Deploying Next-Generation Personal Health Technologies: Translating Digital Biomarkers into Actionable Insights Beyond the Clinic
Richard Li
Postdoctoral Fellow
Computer Science & Engineering
University of Washington
Tuesday, February 24, 2026
9:30 - 10:30 a.m.
1100 Torgersen Hall
Abstract
Despite the ubiquity of consumer electronics and their growing potential for health monitoring, a critical gap remains between the data they produce and the actionable personalized recommendations users seek. In this talk, I will show how my work bridges this gap by taking an application-driven, end-to-end approach to research. To illustrate this strategy, I will introduce two significant, long-term research efforts that I have led: (1) Beacon, a hardware device that enables patients with chronic diseases to self-monitor their cognitive function; and (2) ExerciseRx, a platform that delivers personalized, interactive exercise experiences to support muscle maintenance and strengthening. I will show how these efforts bring together human-centered design, sensing and machine learning, and longitudinal clinical evaluations to develop health technologies with meaningful impact. Finally, I will conclude by discussing ongoing translation efforts and future directions for computing research in health.
Biography
Richard Li is a Postdoctoral Fellow in Computer Science & Engineering at the University of Washington (UW). He also received his PhD from UW in 2025 advised by James Fogarty and Shwetak Patel. He takes an application-driven approach to research by developing practical end-to-end computational solutions to real-world challenges in medicine. His research has been published in computing and medical venues and was awarded with a Best Paper Award at CHI 2025. His work has also directly led to multiple successfully funded grants and is currently deployed in hospital systems across the country.