Fellowship supports research into wearable devices to monitor chronic diseases

Deakin University’s Dr Chandan Karmakar is heading for India thanks to a fellowship from the Australian Academy of Science.

Dr Karmakar, lecturer with Deakin’s School of Information Technology, was awarded an Australia–India Strategic Research Fund Early- and Mid-Career Researcher 2019 Fellowship in December last year.

The fellowship is enabling Dr Karmakar to spend six weeks in India this year to work on a project researching wearable sensor devices for monitoring chronic diseases.

‘The objective of the proposed visit is to advance my existing collaboration with Professor Ramanathan Muthuganapathy from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras,’ Dr Karmakar explains.

‘We are working on a project investigating the use of computational geometry-based approaches to find hidden patterns from accelerometer signals – such as those captured by wrist-worn activity trackers – that differentiate between the activities of daily living and seizures,’ Dr Karmakar explains.

‘My visit will enable us to set up the future research direction for the project. In addition, we aim to meet a set of prospective medical collaborators for data collection in India.’

Dr Karmakar says he values the fellowship both personally and professionally.

‘Being awarded the fellowship provides satisfaction and motivation to work further to improve my career as well as satisfaction to contribute in the benefit of the community.

‘Since this project is on monitoring chronic diseases using wearable devices, if successful, this will help in reducing financial and social burden on families and communities as well as healthcare systems.’

Although Dr Karmakar has been collaborating with Professor Muthuganapathy since 2015, this will be his first visit to India for research purposes.

‘Professor Muthuganapathy is an expert in the field and his supervision will help me to gain appropriate knowledge to build expertise in this similar research area in Australia,’ Dr Karmakar says.

Establishing a long-term collaboration with Professor Muthuganapathy’s group and exploring opportunities for co-supervision of PhD students are other aims of the visit. Dr Karmakar and Professor Muthuganapathy co-supervised a PhD student to completion in 2018, which was a catalyst for their further collaboration.

During his time in India, Dr Karmakar is also planning to visit the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur.