How Do We Get There?: Toward Intelligent Behavior Intervention | Xuhai Xu

Abstract: As the intelligence of everyday smart devices continues to evolve, they can already monitor basic health behaviors such as physical activities and heart rates. The vision of an intelligent behavior change intervention pipeline for health — combining behavior modeling & interaction design — seems to be within reach. How do we get there?

In this talk, I will introduce a comprehensive intervention pipeline that bridges behavior science theory-driven designs and generalizable behavior models. I will also introduce my efforts on passive sensing datasets, human-centered algorithms, and a benchmark platform that drives the community toward more robust and deployable intervention systems for health and well-being.

Bio: Xuhai “Orson” Xu is a postdoc at MIT EECS. He received his PhD at the University of Washington. Specializing in human-computer interaction, applied machine learning, and health, Xu develops intelligent behavior intervention systems to promote human health and well-being. His research covers two aspects — 1) building deployable human-centered behavior models and 2) designing interactive user experiences — to establish a complete system to improve end-users’ well-being. Moreover, his research also goes beyond end-users and supports health experts by designing new human-AI collaboration paradigms in clinical settings. Xu has earned several awards, including 9 Best Paper, Best Paper Honorable Mention, and Best Artifact awards. His research has been covered by media outlets such as the Washington Post and ACM News. He was recognized as the Outstanding Student Award Winner at UbiComp 2022, the 2023 UW Distinguished Dissertation Award, and the 2024 Innovation and Technology Award at the Western Association of Graduate Schools.

Zoom: https://ucsd.zoom.us/j/92792843021
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