Featured Researcher: Hanting Ye
Hanting Ye is a Postdoctoral Associate in the Intelligent Interactive Internet of Things (I3T) Lab, which is led by Center Associate Director of Extended Reality Maria Gorlatova.
Here’s what he’s thinking about and working on.
Connect with Hanting Ye on LinkedIn.
What excites you most about computational and digital health innovations right now?
What excites me most is the possibility of moving from occasional snapshots of health to more continuous, personalized support in everyday life. Wearable devices — for example, smart glasses — can provide a longer-term view of people’s activities and health, while AI can help turn those observations into useful insights. When combined with extended reality (XR), these capabilities could support timely guidance and more proactive interventions. I am particularly excited about bringing this kind of support beyond the clinic and into people’s daily lives.
How did you get interested in computational and digital health?
My interest grew from seeing real-world health needs, including those of people close to me, and wanting to develop technologies that could help them live healthier, happier lives. One especially meaningful experience was hearing from people whose family members have Parkinson’s disease about how our XR rehabilitation application could help their loved ones. Their encouragement and appreciation made the potential impact of this work feel very tangible. For me, few things are more rewarding than the possibility of making a meaningful difference in someone’s daily life.
What current research are you involved in?
My current work focuses on two connected directions. As part of the NSF-supported Breaking Low project, I lead the development of WordPlay Party, a multi-user XR rehabilitation game designed for people with Parkinson’s disease. The game combines physical and cognitive activities and involves a therapist in the shared experience. We are working to extend it to remote settings so that people could participate from home with therapist supervision. My research also addresses the low-latency, reliable connections needed for patients and therapists to interact and receive timely full-body tracking feedback.
In parallel, I am exploring how emerging smart-glasses platforms could support longer-term health monitoring and rehabilitation. By observing daily activities and the surrounding environment, these systems could help us better understand recovery over time and provide context-aware, proactive assistance. My broader goal is to build mobile systems that connect AI with the physical world to support patients and healthcare professionals.
How do you see AI impacting or advancing your work?
I see AI as a way to move from collecting data to understanding what those data mean for an individual over time. In my work, I am interested in using AI to identify subtle changes in movement and daily behavior that might otherwise go unnoticed. Combining these observations with longer-term context could help a system decide when assistance is needed and what guidance would be useful, thereby providing a basis for timely and proactive interventions that complement support from healthcare professionals.
What’s your outlook for the future of computational and digital health? Where do you see the field being in 10 years?
Over the next 10 years, I hope we will move toward personalized mobile health platforms that support people throughout their daily lives, rather than only during clinic visits. By combining wearable sensing and AI, these platforms could help people understand changes in their health, stay engaged in rehabilitation, and connect with healthcare professionals when needed. Smart glasses could provide timely guidance that fits the user’s activities and surroundings. My vision is for these systems to complement clinical expertise and respect privacy, ultimately improving well-being and helping people spend more of their lives in good health
What’s something people don’t know about you?
Something people may not know about me is that I used to be overweight. After noticing how it was affecting my health and daily life, I changed my lifestyle and lost 55 pounds over six months.
