In 2026, Sophia Otálora González presented her research on multisensor recognition of Activities of Daily Living (ADLs) for Parkinson’s disease at two events: Heriot-Watt’s Global Research Institute in Health and Care Technologies’ Early Career Researcher (ECR) Seminar Series, and the SICSA PhD Conference.
GRI Health & Care ECR Seminar Series
On 23 April 2026, Sophia spoke at the seventh seminar in the Global Research Institute in Health and Care Technologies’ Early Career Researcher (ECR) Seminar Series, alongside fellow postgraduate researcher Eunice Anteh, who presented on rethinking digital mental health services for refugee women of African descent.
Sophia’s talk, “Multisensor Recognition of Activities of Daily Living with PPIE-Informed Parkinson’s Protocol Design,” presented a multimodal protocol combining wearable sensors, cameras, radar, and RFID tags to build a baseline for automatically recognising everyday activities such as dressing, personal hygiene, and object manipulation, with the aim of eventually monitoring medication-related motor fluctuations in Parkinson’s disease during daily life.
The protocol design was shaped by a Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement (PPIE) activity with people living with Parkinson’s, clinicians, and carers, ensuring it reflects real-world needs and priorities.
SICSA PhD Conference 2026
Sophia also gave a lightning talk on this work at the SICSA PhD Conference 2026, held on 23–24 June at Glasgow Caledonian University. The conference, SICSA’s flagship annual event, brought together Scotland’s PhD community for networking and researcher training under the 2026 theme “Computer Science for the Common Good.”
About the Events
The GRI Health and Care Technologies ECR Seminar Series brings together academics, professional service experts, and fellow Early Career Researchers to share practical advice, career insights, and personal experiences across all stages of the research journey.
SICSA represents staff and students at 13 Scottish universities with Computing Science departments, and its annual PhD Conference is Scotland’s flagship event for graduate researcher training and networking.