Transforming Healthcare with SMART Health Innovations: Meet Dr. Behnaz Ghoraani, Pioneering in Biomedical Data Science and Wearable Devices

Dr. Behnaz Ghoraani, Associate Professor with the College of Engineering and Computer Science at Florida Atlantic University, and Faculty Fellow at the Institute for Sensing and Embedded Network Systems Engineering (I-SENSE), has been with FAU since the fall of 2016.  

Dr. Ghoraani’s professional journey started in Canada, where she pursued a Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Toronto Metropolitan University, formerly known as Ryerson University. Since then, her research has centered around biomedical data science, wearable computing, machine learning, and remote monitoring, all focused on leveraging technology to address the major health issues facing the world’s population today.

The complexity and diversity of human health and diseases have always been a major source of fascination for Dr. Ghoraani, particularly the ways in which engineering and computer science can help to understand, improve, and enhance human well-being. She has found inspiration in the challenges and opportunities that arise from analyzing non-stationary and noisy biomedical signals and images, and in the extraction of meaningful information from them using advanced signal processing and machine learning techniques. Dr. Ghoraani has further been highly motivated by the potential impact of smart health technologies on improving health care quality, accessibility, affordability, and personalization.

Dr. Ghoraani’s ongoing research aims to develop novel SMART (sensing, monitoring, analytics, remote, and technology) solutions for health issues such as Parkinson’s disease, atrial fibrillation, Alzheimer’s disease, and intracranial hemorrhage. This closely aligns with the Center for SMART Health—where the main objective is to facilitate the use of engineering and computer science technologies to enable state-of-the-art patient-centered health care, early detection of human health problems, and better quality of life. This is evidenced with Dr. Ghoraani’s most significant recent breakthroughs—the development of a wearable sensor system that can automatically assess the response to medication of patients with Parkinson’s disease, and another to detect early signs of Alzheimer’s and dementia.

Her research has led to many exciting cross-disciplinary collaborations indicative of the integrative nature of smart health technology development.  These collaborations include projects related to wearable sensors and advanced machine learning techniques to treat Parkinson's disease, in conjunction with Dr. Joohi Jimenez-Shahed, Director of Movement Disorder at Mount Sinai.  Another collaboration with Dr. James Galvin, Director of the Comprehensive Center for Brain Health (CCBH) at the University of Miami, seeks to develop early detection systems for neurodegenerative diseases using low-cost, non-invasive devices, to identify abnormal cognitive decline before the disease has progressed significantly.

Additional interdisciplinary work is happening here at FAU with Dr. Teresa Wilcox, Professor of Psychology in the College of Science. This unique research involves the analysis of functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) data. fNIRS is a type of neuroimaging technology that measures brain activity by detecting changes in blood oxygenation and blood flow. The team is developing novel signal analysis approaches to enhance the extraction of relevant information from fNIRS data, which can significantly contribute to our understanding of brain function and disorders. This collaborative project is an example of how engineering techniques can be effectively applied to solve complex problems in neuroscience.

Emerging trends such as wearable sensors, implantable devices, cloud computing, edge computing, augmented reality, virtual reality, and digital twins in the smart health field are intriguing to Dr. Ghoraani, as they hold immense potential to revolutionize the healthcare industry. She looks forward to continued research toward the development of more robust, reliable, and user-friendly smart health devices that can integrate with existing healthcare infrastructures and deliver more effective and practical healthcare solutions to patients.

In addition to her research and teaching roles at FAU, Dr. Ghoraani serves as an associate editor for various publications such as IEEE BioMedical Health and Informatics Journal, and Engineering OnLine. She is also part of the National Library of Medicine - Board of Scientific Counselors, the IEEE Signal Processing Magazine, and the Chair of IEEE Women in Signal Processing Committee.
Dr. Ghoraani is passionate about encouraging more students and researchers to venture into the rewarding field of smart health.  She sees the field as one that has the potential to transform millions of lives worldwide and is thrilled to be a part of the Center for SMART Health at FAU, which is a dynamic hub fostering interdisciplinary collaboration and innovation in the field.