News

Congratulations to HFA graduate student Veronica Falcon on a successful thesis proposal! She did a wonderful job and we are excited to see the results of her thesis!

Congratulations to HFA graduate student Yao-Lin Tsai on passing his preliminary exams! We’re excited to see what he does next with his dissertation!

HFA graduate students Veronica Falcon and Yao-Lin Tsai both won awards at the HFES Conference in October. Veronica won the Best Paper Award and Yao-Lin the Best Poster Award, both… Read more: Congratulations, Veronica and Yao-Lin!

Several HFA Lab members presented at the Gerontological Society of America annual meeting in Boston in November.

We are pleased to once again welcome two Student Aging Researchers in Training members to the HFA Lab. Abigail Anokye will be assisting on graduate student Mimi Trinh’s dissertation and Gizel Fahimi… Read more: Welcome, START Students!

The HFA Lab was pleased to have Dr. Neil Charness visit to collaborate on research and offer his advice at the end of October. The discussion continued as several lab… Read more: Visit with Dr. Charness

Congratulations to Drs. Qiong (Tina) Nie, Dan Morrow, Renato Azevedo, and Wendy Rogers on winning the Human Factors in Healthcare Best Article Award at HFES for their paper “Developing Feedback… Read more: Human Factors in Healthcare Best Article Award

Congratulations to the Illinois Human Factors & Ergonomics Society Student Chapter on winning the Silver Award at HFES last week! HFA graduate student Veronica Falcon Borbolla is the Vice President… Read more: HFES Student Chapter Silver Award

The Human Factors & Aging Lab was well represented at the Human Factors & Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting in Chicago October 13-17. Lab members, alumni, and collaborators joined together to… Read more: HFES Illinois Night

Several HFA Lab members enjoyed the Chittenden Symposium, a collaboration between Health & Kinesiology and Industrial and Enterprise Systems Engineering at Illinois, on October 8th. Graduate student Yao-Lin Tsai and… Read more: Chittenden Symposium

Several HFA Lab members participated in the Champaign Walk to End Alzheimer’s on September 20th. To learn more about the walk, click here.

Congratulations to Postdoctoral Research Associate Shafiqul Islam! He received a CREATE Trainee Pilot grant to explore the use of the social assistive robot “Moxie” to improve communication and social engagement… Read more: Dr. Islam Receives Pilot Grant

Congratulations to HFA Lab alumna, Tooba Umar, who recently accepted a position as Regional Manager with the Division of Specialized Care for Children at UIC! Tooba graduated with her Master’s… Read more: Congratulations, Tooba!

Congratulations to HFA Postdoctoral Research Associate Pallabi Bhowmick! Pallabi has been awarded a CREATE Trainee Pilot Grant under the mentorship of Dr. Rogers and Dr. Gupta. The project will develop… Read more: Dr. Bhowmick Receives Pilot Grant

Welcome Jehanna De Los Reyes and Lucas Filarski, this year’s Students Pursuing Applications, Research, and Knowlege (SPARK) students in the HFA Lab! Jehanna will be working on the Disability &… Read more: Welcome, SPARK Students!

Our collaborators Henry and Jane Evans were recently featured on CBS Sunday Morning.  The HFA Lab has been working with the Evans family as part of our Small Business Innovation… Read more: Henry and Jane featured on CBS

Congratulations to lab alumni Ryan Santens and Samuel Olatunji who start new positions this fall! Ryan earned his PhD working in the HFA Lab and is now an Assistant Professor… Read more: Congratulations Ryan and Samuel!

Congratulations to our Community Academic Scholars, Shreya Rana and Leo Wang! They presented posters from their work over the summer. Shreya’s research was “Robot Showerhead for Older Adults with Mobility… Read more: Community Academic Scholars Poster Session

Congratulations to Willencia Louis-Charles on the successful defense of her Master’s thesis, Perceptions of Type 2 Diabetes Self-Management Among Middle-Aged Adults. Great job on this important work, Willencia!

The Human Factors & Aging Lab is pleased to host Community-Academic Scholars again this year. Shreya Rana and Yuheng (Leo) Wang are are working with the lab and ClarkLindsey Life… Read more: Welcome, Community-Academic Scholars!

Congratulations to our recent graduates Tooba Umar, Ryan Santens, and Willencia Louis-Charles. We are so proud of all their hard work in our lab and can’t wait to see what… Read more: Congrats Grads!

The Human Factors & Aging Laboratory was represented by 13 student posters and 2 oral presentations at the Undergraduate Research Symposium on April 24th. Congratulations to all of our students… Read more: HFA Undergrads Present at URS

The Digital Assistant in a Box study, a long-term study in the HFA Lab, was recently featured in AHS News. The study shows the benefits of home assistant technology for… Read more: Digital Assistant in a Box featured in AHS News

HFA Undergraduate Research Assistant Fatima Pantoja earned the F. Patricia Cullen Scholarship at the AHS awards on April 10. Congratulations, Fatima!

Congratulations to one of our grad students, Ryan Santens, who recently received the Reginald J. Alston award for excellence in Community Health and Rehabilitation. He received the award for his… Read more: Congratulations, Ryan!

Congratulations to Tooba on the successful defense of her Master’s thesis! Her presentation was very well-organized and clearly presented. Well done Tooba! We can’t wait to see what you do next!

Congratulations to our HFA undergraduate students, past and present, who have recently had papers accepted in academic journals. Undergraduates are an integral part of our lab and we would not be… Read more: Congratulations Undergrads!

Several HFA Lab members, past and present, attended and presented at the Human Factors & Ergonomics Society Healthcare Symposium in Toronto. Click here to see more details about the conference.

Congratulations to HFA graduate student Tooba Umar for a successful thesis proposal! Her project is titled “Perceptions of Everyday Challenges for Older Traumatic Brain Injury, Care Partner-Care Recipient Dyads.” We… Read more: Congratulations, Tooba!

Several HFA Lab members had the opportunity to attend Connecting Researchers Studying Aging at Illinois on January 24th. It was a great time to connect and learn about the aging… Read more: Connecting Researchers Studying Aging at Illinois

HFA Lab member Ryan Santens successfully defended his dissertation, “A Community-Based Implementation of an Adapted Mindfulness-Based Intervention with a Low-Income Population,” on January 23rd. Ryan did a great job of… Read more: Congratulations, Dr. Santens!

Tongxin Sun has been at the HFA Lab as a visiting scholar for the past year, and is returning to Beijing to finish her PhD. We celebrated her time with… Read more: Farewell, Tongxin!

The Human Factors and Aging Lab was represented by 8 members at the Gerontological Society of America, with several presentations and posters. In addition to attending the conference and presenting… Read more: HFA Lab at GSA

Graduate student Willencia Louis-Charles had a successful thesis proposal on November 11. Congratulations on being one step closer to your MS in Community Health, Willencia!

Lab director Wendy Rogers received the award for the faculty member with the most projects at REDCap Day. Congratulations on this fun award!

Postdoctoral researcher Pallabi Bhowmick has been selected as a recipient of the Gerontological Society of America (GSA) Diversity Mentoring and Career Development Technical Assistance Workshop Diversity Fellow Award.  This award… Read more: Congratulations To Pallabi!

Congratulations to Mimi on a very successful Dissertation Proposal Meeting. Her committee was very interested in her topic and Mimi has a streamlined plan for her dissertation. Well done, Mimi!

The McKechnie Family LIFE Home and HFA Lab member Afnaan Afsaar Ali were featured in the first picture of the Healthy Aging Research Impact Campaign. Click here to learn more about the… Read more: Afnaan Featured in Illinois Research Impact

Elle Eastman and RJ Mattas joined the HFA Lab as this year’s Students Pursuing Applications, Research, and Knowledge (SPARK). Elle will be assisting on the Diabetes Study and RJ will… Read more: SPARK Students Join HFA Lab

Former HFA Postdocs George Mois and Renato Azevedo have both started new positions as Assistant Professors at the University Of Georgia. George is in the Department of Health Promotion and… Read more: George and Renato start at UGA

Several lab members attended and presented at the Human Factors & Ergonomics Society ASPIRE Conference September 9-12. They were able to meet up with current and past colleagues at Illinois… Read more: Illinois Night at HFES

Congratulations to HFA Lab members Esther Cardenas and Stone Shi on their successful presentations at the Community-Academic Scholar event! Esther presented “Robots Support in Care Facilities: Designing to Understand the Perceptions… Read more: Community-Academic Scholar Presentation

Congratulations to HFA Lab members Camryn Lynn and Michael Varzino! At the MS in Health Technology Capstone Celebration, Camryn received the Michael Vitoux Capstone Excellence Award and Michael received an… Read more: Congratulations, Camryn and Michael!

Drs. Samuel Olatunji and Harshal Mahajan received an award for a paper they jointly led earlier this year! They have been selected to received a 2024 Innovative Research on Aging… Read more: Samuel and Harshal Receive Award

Congratulations to Drs. Harshal Mahajan and Samuel Olatunji! They have received a Center on Health, Aging, and Disability Pilot Grant for $30,000 for their proposal entitled “Robot Support for Individuals… Read more: Harshal and Samuel Receive CHAD Pilot Grant

Esther Cardenas and Shuoning (Stone) Shi are joining us for the summer as Community Academic Scholars. They will be advised by Drs. Wendy Rogers, Raksha Mudar, and Samuel Olatunji and… Read more: HFA & AANCL Labs Welcome Community Academic Scholars

Haseeb Rehman earned an Honorable Mention for his spoken presentation “Assistive Technology for Older Adults with Hearing Disabilities” at the Undergraduate Research Symposium. Congratulations, Haseeb! To view the full list… Read more: Congratulations, Haseeb!

The HFA Lab had 10 posters at the Undergraduate Research Symposium. Presenters included Afnaan, Amy, Anika, Adam, Cam, Dhruti, Ethan, Fatima, Gabriella, Maya, and Noah. They presented research from CREATE,… Read more: HFA Posters at URS

HFA undergrads Haseeb Rehman and Saathveek Gowrishankar delivered spoken presentations at the Undergraduate Research Symposium. Haseeb presented “Assistive Technology for Older Adults with Hearing Disabilities” based on research from TechSAge… Read more: Haseeb & Saathveek Present at URS

The HFA Lab was privileged to host Dr. Chris Wickens for dinner when he visited Illinois for the Health Technology Speaker Series. Dr. Wickens’ presentation was titled “An Influence Model… Read more: Dr. Chris Wickens Visits

Erin Heniff recently defended her audiology capstone project, entitled “Discovering Communication Challenges and Response Strategies of Late-Deafened Older Adults.” Erin passed with no revisions required. Congratulations, Erin! Erin will now… Read more: Congratulations to Erin!

Graduate student Varitnan (Golf) Hattakitjamroen successfully defended his Master’s thesis, Developing an Assessment Tool to Measure Enhanced Activities of Daily Living in Older Adults. Congratulations, Golf!

Congratulations to graduate student Mimi Trinh on passing her written and part I prelim oral examinations! Mimi is now all but dissertation. Well-done, Mimi!

Multiple undergraduate students in the HFA Lab received departmental awards. Cam Jaime-Rivera received the Carol L. Chittenden Scholarship. Fatima Pantoja-Lara received the Joanne M. Carraway & Charles M. Carraway Scholarship.… Read more: Lab Members Receive Awards

Congratulations to HFA Lab member Yao-Lin Tsai on receiving the 2024-2025 Chittenden Fellowship! The Chittenden Fellowship is intended to support a doctoral student in the Health & Kinesiology Department who… Read more: Yao-Lin Receives Chittenden Fellowship

Several members of the HFA Lab attended the Human Factors & Ergonomics Society Health Care Symposium. Many lab members gave presentations from current research. To view the conference program, please click… Read more: HFA at HFES Health

Lab Director Dr. Wendy Rogers has been selected to serve on the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine Board on Human Systems Integration. Congratulations, Wendy!

Congratulations to HFA postdoctoral research associate Dr. Renato Azevedo as one of the 24 recipients of the Mistletoe Research Fellowship by the Momental Foundation. This professional development program awards research… Read more: Congratulations, Renato!

Congratulations to Megan Nickrent on her promotion to Assistant Lab Director. Megan has previously worked as our Lab Coordinator and has been at our lab since 2017. Her new role… Read more: Congratulations, Megan!

Congratulations to HFA postdoctoral research associate Dr. Renato Azevedo. He was selected as the CREATE Trainee Pilot Grant recipient for this year. The title of his grant is “Meta-Analyses of mHealth… Read more: Congratulations, Renato!

Several HFA Lab members had the opportunity to network attending the Aging Technical Group Luncheon at the Human Factors & Ergonomics Society meeting in Washington DC on October 24. To… Read more: <strong>HFES Aging Technical Group Luncheon</strong>

Graduate student Mimi Trinh represented the Human Factors & Aging Laboratory at the Human Factors & Ergonomics Society International Annual Meeting. Click here to learn more about joining our team,… Read more: <strong>Human Factors & Aging Lab Represented at HFES</strong>

Members of the HFA Lab attended the 10th Year Anniversary Health Care Engineering Systems Symposium on October 16, celebrating a decade of the Jump ARCHES partnership. Lab Director Wendy Rogers and… Read more: <strong>HFA Members attend Health Care Engineering Systems Symposium</strong>

HFA Lab members Tooba Umar and Gabriella Schneider presented posters at the Chittenden Symposium October 4th. Gabriella’s poster “Documenting the Development of mHealth Applications” came from the Blood Pressure Study,… Read more: <strong>HFA Members Present at Chittenden Symposium</strong>

Thank you to our Community Academic Scholars, Afnaan Afsar Ali and Adam Syed, for all the work completed this summer! Afnaan and Adam worked with the Stretch team and our… Read more: <strong>Thank you, Afnaan & Adam!</strong>

Postdoctoral research associate Renato Azevedo recently received the prestigious American Psychological Association (APA) Briggs Dissertation Award. This award is presented for the best doctoral dissertation in applied experimental/engineering psychology. Renato… Read more: Congratulations, Renato!

Lab Director Wendy Rogers and Postdoctoral Research Associate Samuel Olatunji recently traveled to California to meet with the Hello Robot team. It was a wonderful trip advancing human-robot interaction research.

Lab Coordinator Megan Nickrent has been accepted to the Emerging Women Leaders Forum for 2023-2024. This is a program designed to “equip participants with leadership skills that will positively impact their departments… Read more: <strong>Megan accepted to Emerging Women Leaders</strong>

Undergraduate research assistant Zolzaya Byambasuren was recently awarded the James Scholar Preble Research Award, a scholarship supporting James Scholars involved in undergraduate research. Zolzaya works on the Human Robot Interaction… Read more: <strong>Congratulations, Zolzaya!</strong>

Postdoctoral research associate Samuel Olatunji was recently quoted for the proto.life article “Can we learn to embrace robotic caregivers? An aging population and elder care shortages means we may not… Read more: <strong>Dr. Olatunji Quoted in proto.life</strong>

HFA Lab Director Dr. Wendy A. Rogers served on a panel titled “What Can Diabetes Quality Teams Learn from Engineers and Designers?” at the 83rd Scientific Session of the American Diabetes… Read more: <strong>American Diabetes Association Scientific Session</strong>

HFA Participant Recruitment Coordinator Emma Lachs and Research Assistant Tooba Umar attended the Champaign County Annual Summer Senior Event on June 10. The Summer Senior Event allowed for networking with… Read more: <strong>Summer Senior Event</strong>

Postdoctoral research associates Nila Albuquerque, Hye Soo Lee, and George Mois attended the CREATE Workshop in New York City. Nila, Hye Soo, and George learned alongside more than 20 participants… Read more: <strong>HFA Postdocs Attend CREATE Workshop</strong>

The Human Factors and Aging Laboratory welcomed two Community Academic Scholars this summer. Undergraduate students Afnaan Afsar Ali and Adam Syed will assist on a project working with ClarkLindsey called “Understanding the… Read more: <strong>HFA Lab Welcomes Community Academic Scholars</strong>

Megan Bily received an Outstanding Oral Presentation Award for her presentation “What is Aging Independently and What’s a Robot Got to do with it?” at the Undergraduate Research Symposium. Congratulations, Megan!… Read more: Congratulations, Megan Bily!

Eight undergraduate students presented research posters from the Human Factors & Aging Laboratory at the Undergraduate Research Symposium on April 27th. Congratulations to Afnaan Afsar Ali, Divya Bhookya, Maya Dye,… Read more: HFA Undergrads Present at Research Symposium

Afnaan Afsar Ali, an undergraduate research assistant in the Human Factors & Aging Laboratory, was featured in the College of Applied Health Sciences News. She was interviewed about her research… Read more: Afnaan Featured in AHS News

An oral presentation session of the Undergraduate Research Symposium titled “Robotic Advancements in Support of Aging Populations” was filled by undergraduate students Jade Marks, Saathveek Gowrishankar, and Megan Bily, members… Read more: HRI Undergrads Present During Research Week

Husna Hussaini received an award for “Best Undergraduate Paper” from the Department of Sociology for the proposal she wrote as part of her Honors Senior Thesis in the Human Factors… Read more: Congratulations, Husna!

Undergraduate research assistant Husna Hussaini recently presented a poster titled “Instructional Assessing the Potential of Voice-Activated Digital Home Assistants for Older Adults with Mobility Disability” at the Stanford Research Conference. Husna… Read more: <strong>Husna Presents at Stanford Research Conference</strong>

Human Factors & Aging Laboratory graduate student Mimi Trinh successfully defended her master’s thesis “Understanding Older Adults’ Motivations to Use Digital Health Technology” on April 7. Mimi’s study was very… Read more: <strong>Congratulations, Mimi!</strong>

Postdoctoral research associate recently presented at the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Health Care Symposium in Orlando. His presentation was titled “A participatory design project to evaluate benefits and workload… Read more: Samuel Presents at HFES Health

Eldrick Surheyao, a former undergraduate research assistant in the Human Factors & Aging Laboratory, was recently selected as a recipient of the F. Patricia Cullen Scholarship Award. Congratulations, Eldrick! To… Read more: <strong>Congratulations, Eldrick!</strong>

Research Assistant Emma Lachs presented “Facilitators and Barriers to Older Adults’ Use of Digital Home Assistants: Implications for Informatics” based off research from TechSAge R2 at the American Medical Informatics… Read more: <strong>Emma Lachs Presents at AMIA</strong>

The collaborative efforts between the Human Factors and Aging Laboratory and Hello Robot were recently featured on several media outlets. The News Gazette posted the following article detailing how Stretch… Read more: Hello Robot Partnership Featured in News Gazette, on WCIA, and in AHS News

Congratulations to Drs. Kenneth Blocker, Maurita Harris, Qiong (Tina) Nie, and Madina Khamzina who all earned their PhDs this year. We cannot wait to see where you will go from… Read more: Congratulations, Graduates!

Postdoctoral research associate George Mois was awarded a $10,000 trainee pilot grant for his project “Leveraging Presence through Virtual Reality to Support Social Connectivity.” The award is part of the… Read more: Congratulations, George!

Dr. Wendy A. Rogers and the McKechnie Family LIFE Home were featured on the Illinois homepage. Click here to learn more about how the LIFE Home is used “to define… Read more: “Home is where the robot is”

The Fall 2022 TechSAge Newsletter is now available. Please click here the view the PDF of the newsletter.

The Center on Health, Aging, and Disability Annual Report is now available. Please click here to read about the highlights from 2021-2022.

Dr. Wendy Rogers is the principal investigator for the Illinois site of the multi-institutional, interdisciplinary Center for Research and Education on Aging and Technology Enhancement (CREATE). CREATE was recently awarded… Read more: CREATE Center Receives $14.7 Million Grant

HFA Lab member Carson Smith was recently featured by the College of Applied Health Sciences News & Features. Carson joined the lab as a freshman in 2019, and we are… Read more: Carson Smith featured in AHS News

PhD Candidate Megan Bayles has been chosen as the recipient of the 2022-2023 Chittenden Fellowship. This is a prestigious fellowship at Illinois meant to support a graduate student who has… Read more: Megan Bayles Receives Fellowship

Undergraduate Research Assistant Carson Smith received an award for Outstanding Presentation for his spoken presentation, titled Development and Iteration of Medication Adherence: Applications for Older Adults, at the 2022 Undergraduate… Read more: Carson Smith Receives Award

Nine undergraduate students from the HFA Lab presented at the 2022 Undergraduate Research Symposium. Carson Smith delivered a spoken presentation, while Faith Burnham, Maya Dye, Husna Hussaini, Shaunik Kapoor, Emma… Read more: Lab Members Present at Research Symposium

Graduate student Madina Khamzina received the Joanne M. and Charles M. Carraway Scholarship at the Kinesiology & Community Health Award Ceremony on April 7. Congratulations on this award, Madina!

Graduate student Megan Bayles earned an honorable mention in the Stretch Robot Pitch Competition sponsored by TechSAge in collaboration with Hello Robot and P&G. Learn more about the competition and… Read more: Congratulations, Megan!

Doctoral candidate and HFA Lab member Maurita Harris has been selected as a recipient of a 2021 American Psychological Association (APA) Dissertation Research Award. The award of $5,000 is to… Read more: Congratulations, Maurita!

Eldrick Surheyao and Kyreon Williams recently joined the Human Factors and Aging Laboratory as part of the Student Aging Researchers in Training (START) program. START takes place over a full… Read more: START Students Join the HFA Lab

The collaboration between the Human Factors and Aging Laboratory and Hello Robot was recently featured on the College of Applied Health Sciences Blog. Read Dr. Rogers’ history with the creators… Read more: Hello Robot Collaboration featured in AHS News