A team led by Donna Spruijt-Metz won co-honors with Viterbi faculty at the recent USC Body Computing Slam, a competition of presentations the day before the annual USC Body Computing Conference 3.0, which took place in mid-October 2009 at the University Park campus.

The award-winning presentation was the KNOWME Network study, which uses wireless, wearable body sensors to measure physiological activity, food intake, stress levels, heart rate, and other indicators. The KNOWME device is to be tailored to the individual and would “ping” the person whenever they were sedentary for too long.

Spruijt-Metz, associate professor, Department of Preventive Medicine, is the principal investigator on the study, which aims to develop a mobile body area network for minority youth to encourage physical activity and better health. Viterbi faculty members of the team include Urbashi Mitra, Shri Narayanan and Murali Annavaram from the Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical Engineering, and Gaurav Sukhatme and Nenad Medvidovic from the Department of Computer Science. Also on the team is Giselle Ragusa, who has appointments with Viterbi and the USC Rossier School of Education.

At the Body Computing Slam, teams present projects and demonstrations of the latest medical diagnostic and intervention technology in front of other research teams, venture capitalists, and medical device developers. The presentations are critiqued by a professional panel. The audience votes for the technology they believe has the highest potential to make substantial changes in healthcare.

The annual Body Computing conference brings together leading experts in healthcare and technology to present findings on the next phase of development of applications and wireless devices that help people manage their health. The Body Computing Conference and Slam are organized by Leslie Saxon, M.D., chief, Division of Cardiology for the Keck School of Medicine, and sponsored by the Keck School of Medicine.