Principal Investigator

Carissa A. Low, PhD

Google Scholar
Dr. Low received her PhD in clinical and health psychology from UCLA in 2008 and completed her clinical internship and postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Pittsburgh Department of Psychiatry.  Her research focuses on interactions between behavior, biology, and patient-centered outcomes in the context of cancer. She is particularly interested in the use of mobile technology to monitor and change health behaviors and symptoms during cancer treatment.  Her work has been funded by the National Cancer Institute, National Institute of Mental Health, Pittsburgh Health Data Alliance, UPMC Aging Institute, and Sony Corporation.

Postdoctoral Associate

Julio Vega, PhD

Julio Vega is a postdoctoral associate at the Mobile Sensing + Health Institute. He is interested in personalized methodologies to monitor chronic conditions that affect daily human behavior using mobile and wearable data. In the long term, his goal is to explore how we can enable patients to inform, amend, and evaluate their health tracking algorithms to improve disease self-management.

Previously, Julio received a PhD degree from the University of Manchester for investigating a personalized, unobtrusive and clinical-informed methodology to track fluctuations in Parkinson's symptoms. He also collaborated with the University of Oulu, Finland to improve Parkinson's medication adherence using a mobile game and with the University of Bristol to detect binge eating episodes using smartphone interactions.

Program Manager

Krina Durica, MA

​Krina Durica received her Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology and her Master of Arts degree in Applied Psychological Research from Penn State University. She is currently working towards a Project Management Professional (PMP) certification. Before joining Dr. Low’s lab, Krina worked as a Research Coordinator at Penn State Hershey managing social skills projects for adolescents and young adults with high-functioning autism.

Research Coordinator

Eddie Lasker, BS

Eddie Lasker received his Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology from the University of Pittsburgh. Before joining the BOT Lab, Eddie worked as a research assistant in the Department of Psychiatry and as a peer mentor. In the future, Eddie hopes to pursue a Master’s in physician assistant studies.

Senior Software Engineer

Abhineeth Reddy Kunta, MS

Abhineeth Reddy Kunta is a Senior Software Engineer with the Mobile Sensing + Health Institute. He is experienced in software development and specializes in building solutions using machine learning. Abhineeth likes exploring ways to leverage technology in advancing medicine and education. Previously he worked as a Computer Programmer at Georgia Department of Public Health. He has a master's degree in Computer Science from George Mason University.

Data Scientist

Meng Li, MS

Meng Li received her Master of Science degree in Information Science from the University of Pittsburgh. She is interested in applying machine learning algorithms to the medical field.

Research Assistants

Hersh Parikh

Hersh will be going into his sophomore year at the University of Pittsburgh pursuing a bachelor’s degree. Hersh is majoring in computational biology and is on the pre-med track. Before joining the BOT lab Hersh has had patient interaction experience through volunteering at his local hospital and has had python programing experience through his undergraduate classes.

Anthony Zygmunt

Anthony is a sophomore at the University of Pittsburgh studying Microbiology on the pre-med track. Anthony has previous experience in volunteering at UPMC facilities and a passion for biology and patient care.

Dean's Summer Research Project Scholar

Sean McClaine

Sean McClaine received his Bachelor of Science degree in Biomedical Engineering from Boston University in 2020. He is currently pursuing a medical degree from the University of Pittsburgh's School of Medicine. He has previously worked on the design and testing of a vibrating wearable device that aimed to normalize unstable breathing patterns in preterm infants.

Computer and Information Science Interns

Sonal Gupta

Sonal is a graduate student at the University of Pittsburgh pursuing a Master of Science in the Information Science program. She completed her Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science in India and has work experience in software development and visualization. She is curious to know how data can be interpreted and used to deduce valuable insights. Sonal aspires to create value from data science by building machine learning models and AI solutions that make business nimbler and smarter.

Weiyu Huang

Weiyu is currently a student in the Master of Science in Information Science program at the University of Pittsburgh. He previously earned his Bachelor’s degree at Michigan State University, majoring in Computer Science with a Mathematics minor. Weiyu sees himself as a full-stack software developer and looks forward to gaining experience in the data science field.

Kirtiraj Khandekar

Kirtiraj is currently pursuing a Master of Science degree in Information Science from the University of Pittsburgh. He previously earned a Bachelor of Technology degree in Computer Science. He is a Machine Learning (ML) enthusiast and loves to experiment with its application in various fields and interpretation of ML algorithms. Kirtiraj is aspiring to build a career in Data Science and explaining what is happening in ML models behind the scenes.

Lab Alumni

Kwesi Aguillera
​​Alberto Barrientos
​​Bles​sy Bellamy
​Hannah Bitzer
​Carolyn Brown
Samantha Buccina
​Michaela Danko
​Lia Farrell
Umeka Ganjoo
Nikunj Goel
Monica Henderson
Carly Jones
Echhit Joshi
Nicolas Leo
​Mariah Mascara
Erin McPherson
​Ruchika Moturi
Stephanie Nam
Alexa Rieger
​Lillian Smith
​Lindsay Snider
​Stephen Worrall
​Elynna Youm
​Jenny Zhang
Nika Zharichenko

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