Dr. Zilu Liang
IEEE Senior Member, Certified Professional Diet AdvisorDr. Zilu Liang
A maverick at heart, I find tremendous intellectual joy in research and writing, and remain endlessly fascinated by Existentialism, philosophical Taoism, and the wonders of nature; definitely not a fan of Confucianism and have no interest in chasing worldly success.
Trained in information science and systems. PhD at the University of Tokyo, visiting scholar at the University of Oxford and Imperial College London, postdoc at the University of Melbourne, assistant professor at the University of Tokyo. Founder and director of the Ubiquitous and Personal Computing Lab at KUAS. All was done for fun!
The "Self" is a central theme of my research—not the version shaped by social norms (as in Confucianism), but the authentic self designed by nature (as in Taoism). This fuels my enduring curiosity about the diversity of the human body and mind, and the evolutionary drives behind them. I integrate computing technologies, interaction design and AI to empower individuals to understand and realize this true self, and ultimately cultivating a harmonious, respectful relationship with one's inner world. My research favors deep ideographic, longitudinal approaches over shallow populational, cross-sectional snapshots.
Raised in a family of teachers, I developed a genuine curiosity about how to help people learn faster and better. My teaching philosophy is profoundly influenced by my father, who taught with boundless compassion and an unwavering respect for each student’s individuality. At a practical level, I honed my pedagogical skills through the faculty development program at University of Melbourne and the English-medium instruction training at the University of Tokyo.
I treasure physical strength and self-discipline. When I'm not researching or writing, you can find me doing HIIT (Les Mills), barbell training, kick boxing, Pilates, yoga (Bikram) to maintain pro-athlete level metabolic profile. I've trained for 10 years in Taekwondo, Chinese martial art and Shotokan Karate. I follow a Paleo diet with time-restricted feeding (though only intermittently these days, haha...ego depletion...) and I'm strongly against sugar and artificial sweeteners.
Love life more than the meaning of it.
— Fyodor Dostoyevsky "The Brothers Karamazov"
We welcome interns from all our partner universities as well as JSPS Summer Program fellows. For more information about internship projects provided by the Ubicomp Lab, please check the list of internship projects we offer for AY2027.
We will present the following papers at the 2026 IEEE 15th Global Conference on Consumer Electronics (GCCE 2026), an annual flagship conference of the IEEE Consumer Technology Society. Check out our presentation schedule here. [26 Oct 2026]
Hoang NH, Karunarathna T, Villeneuve J, Melcer EF, Liang Z. Glanceable Chronotype and Social Jetlag on Smartwatches: A Gamified MCTQ Design. (International collaboration with Carleton University, Canada)
Senanayake AL, Yapa HPP, Liang Z. Reason First or Predict First: Enhancing the Interpretability of Large Language Models for Digital Mental Health Screening. (International collaboration with University of Luxemburg, Luxemburg)
Tungkunavipas A, Liang Z. Cross-Wavelength PPG Heart Rate Estimation Under Varying Skin Tones: A Comparative Study.
Raj P, Liang Z. User-in-the-Loop Cross-Model Evaluation of LLM-Generated Health Feedback.
Koo JA, Toendan KA, Shimada ET, Zaman A, Liang Z. Towards Safer Bathing: A Wearable Assistive System for Monitoring and Preventing Bathing-Related Health Risks in Older Adults.
Yusuf B, Liang Z. Cross-Model SHAP Interpretability Analysis for HRV-Based Stress Detection: Feature Importance, Direction, and Scale.
Intakornudom T, Sahassapaht P, Tinnongjik K, Tantiwattanasirikul T, Ophasnavin S, Treekunprapha P, Liang Z. A Usability Study of an AI-Assisted XR-Based CPR Training System Using Consumer Smart Glasses.
Wiratma IN, Turnip AMA, Tjandra KN, Santoso JR, Piumarta I, Liang Z. KAKI: A Modular Smart Insole Platform for Lower-Body Sensing and Health Monitoring.
Kumar A, Meyer J, Liang Z. Postprandial Glucose Response Prediction Using Multimodal Consumer Health Data.
🏅Our work "A Modular Architecture and Dual-Level Evaluation Framework for Semantically Grounded LLM Feedback in Mobile Health" received a Best Presentation Award at the 8th World Symposium on Software Engineering (WSSE 2026). [17 Oct 2026]
We presented the following work at the 8th World Symposium on Software Engineering (WSSE 2026). [17 Oct 2026]
Raj P, Liang Z. A Modular Architecture and Dual-Level Evaluation Framework for Semantically Grounded LLM Feedback in Mobile Health.【Best Presentation Award】
Bhardwaj S, Liang Z. Developing a Gamified Goal Management and Habit Tracking System Utilizing a Cross-Platform Behavioural Analytics framework.
Our paper has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Sleep Research (Q1), a leading journal in sleep science and medicine, indexed in PubMed, SCI, and Scopus. Nhung Huyen Hoang, Zilu Liang. Machine Learning Improves Questionnaire-Based Sleep Apnea Screening: A Multi-Cohort Multi-Visit Validation Study. (Acceptance rate = 15%) [15 Oct 2026]
🏅Our VR-CPR team won the Third Place and a People's Choice Award at the UbiComp 2026 Student Challenge, a highly competitive student competition held in conjunction with ACM UbiComp, a top international conference on ubiquitous and wearable computing. . [14 Oct 2026]
🏅Our work "From Notifications to Quests: Reframing Wearable Health Interventions Through RPG Quest Systems" received a Best Presentation Award at the Wearable Design in Games and Entertainment (WDGE) Workshop, held in conjunction with ACM UbiComp 2026, a top international conference on ubiquitous and wearable computing. [11 Oct 2026]
🏅Our MiyakoHAR team (Arthur🌻, Ken🍇, Pana🌰) won an Excellence Award at CUHK-X Multimodal Human Activity Challenge (Small Model Track). [11 Oct 2026]
Our following paper was published in JMIR Research Protocols, indexed by PubMed, SCI, and Scopus. Zilu Liang, Carl Daniel Karlsson. Investigating the Effects of Paralinguistic Configuration in Background Human Speech on Attention: Protocol for a Within-Subject Study. [30 Sep 2026]
Our group visited Université Paris Cité, France, to explore research collaboration in digital health and wearable persuasive technologies. We had fruitful discussions with Dr. Lorraine Cousin Cabrolier, Dr. Enora Le Roux, Dr. Claire Collin, and their colleagues, which lays the groundwork for future France–Japan joint research in digital health and persuasive technologies. We sincerely thank our collaborators for their warm hospitality and the Office for Science and Technology, Embassy of France in Japan, for supporting this visit. [29 Sep 2026]
Welcoming 1 PhD student and 4 master students as new lab members. [10 Sep 2026]
I was invited to serve on the Program Committee of the International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Blockchain in Healthcare (ABH 2027). [25 Aug 2026]
I was invited to serve on the Program Committee of the 13th International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies for Ageing Well and e-Health (ICT4AWE 2027). [4 Aug 2026]
Our following papers were published at the UbiComp / ISWC 2026, the top venue of ubiquitous computing research. [28 July 2026]
Wearable Design in Games and Entertainment (WDGE 2026) Workshop
🏅Melcer EF, Villeneuve J, Tu A, Karunarathna T, Hoang NH, Liang Z. From Notifications to Quests: Reframing Wearable Health Interventions Through RPG Quest Systems. (Best Presentation Award, International collaboration with Carleton University, Canada)
Karunarathna T, Hoang NH, Villeneuve J, Melcer EF, Liang Z. Lumitree: Repurposing Smartwatch Ambient Light Sensors for Morning Light Promotion through Serious Games. (International collaboration with Carleton University, Canada)
Computing for Well-being (WellComp 2026) Workshop
Karunarathna T, Hoang NH, Villeneuve J, Melcer EF, Liang Z. Indoor-Outdoor Classification Using Consumer Smartwatch Ambient Light Sensors in Everyday Environments. (International collaboration with Carleton University, Canada)
Explainable AI for Ubiquitous, Pervasive and Wearable Computing (XAI4U 2026) Workshop
Yapa HPP, Senanayake AL, Liang Z. Beyond Plausibility and Informativeness: Evaluating Utility and Faithfulness of LLM Explanations in Digital Mental Health. (International collaboration with University of Luxemburg, Luxemburg)
Student Challenge
🏅Intakornudom T, Sahassapaht P, Tinnongjik K, Ophasnavin S, Tantiwattanasirikul T, Liang Z. From Real-Time Feedback to Adaptive Coaching: An AI Agent for Wearable CPR Training. (Third place / People's Choice Award)
🏅AKAIDUZZAMAN AKM, Shimada ET, Koo JA, Toendan KA, Rostum K, Liang Z. Aegis: An On-Device Foundation Model Agent for Safety-Critical Triage Under Potentially Conflicting Sensor Evidence in Elderly Bathing. (Finalist Team)
CUHK-X Multimodal Human Activity Challenge (Small Model Track)
🏅Koo JA, Toendan KA, Hoang NH, Liang, Z. MiyakoHAR: Cross-Subject Activity Recognition from Depth, Infrared and Thermal Video. (Excellence Award)
JSPS staff visited our lab and interviewed our JSPS Postdoc fellow Abbey Liu. [24 July 2026]
Our following paper was published in the proceedings of the 17th ACM Conference on Bioinformatics, Computational Biology, and Health Informatics (ACM BCB). Ashala Lakmini Senanayake, Zilu Liang. CIERTe: Continuous Inter-Event Relative Temporal Anchoring for Anxiety Detection from Social Media Posts. (Regular paper acceptance rate = 20%) [30 June 2026]
I was invited to serve on the Program Committee of the 8th World Symposium on Software Engineering (WSSE 2026). [2 June 2026]
I gave an invited talk at the 9th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Big Data (ICAIBD 2026). [30 May 2026]
Our following paper was accepted by Frontiers in Digital Health (Q1), indexed by SCI and Scopus. Liang Z. Within-Person Modeling of Postprandial Glucose Using Multimodal Wearable Data. [28 May 2026]
I gave a keynote talk at the Workshop on Behavioral and Emotion Analysis through wearable Technology (BEAT) entitled Frictionless by Design, Bounded by Ethics: Rethinking Data Collection with Wearable Sensing. [25 May 2026]
I was invited to serve as a Program Chair of the 9th Artificial Intelligence and Cloud Computing Conference (AICCC 2026). [22 May 2026]
I received a Best Presentation Award at the 10th International Conference on Medical and Health Informatics (ICMHI 2026) for presenting Visual Analytics of Sugar Intake and Postprandial Interstitial Glucose Dynamics Using 3D Surface Plots. [20 May 2026]
I was invited to serve on the Program Committee of the 20th International Conference on Health Informatics (HEALTHINF 2027). [7 May 2026]
We were honored to welcome Prof. Seiji Nishino (Director, Sleep and Circadian Neurobiology Laboratory, Stanford Center for Sleep Sciences and Medicine), Dr. Naoya J Maeda-Nishino (Stanford Center for Sleep Sciences and Medicine), and Mrs. Chie Nishino (Director, NOB Shiftwork Research), and engage in inspiring discussions on sleep science and technologies. [1 May 2026]
Our ThermalGuardian Team (Arthur, Ken, Ethan, and Zaman) won the 2nd Place @ iCAN’26 Contest🎉 This outstanding achievement reflects the team’s dedication, creativity, and strong technical capabilities in developing innovative MEMS-based solutions for health and wellbeing. Following this success, the team has been selected to represent Japan in the international round of the competition. We are excited to see them take their work to the global stage and continue to demonstrate excellence in innovation and research. Congratulations to the entire team, and we wish them the very best in the upcoming international competition! [26 April 2026]
Our following paper was accepted by IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics (Q1, top 5%, acceptance rate 14.4%), indexed by SCI and Scopus. Priyadarshana YHPP, Zhou N, Krishnaswamy P, Jiang R, Liang Z. MediPhen: Prompt-Based LLM Reasoning with Synthesized Multimodal Clinical Knowledge for Zero-Shot Multi-morbidity Phenotyping. (International collaboration with A*STAR, Singapore) [24 April 2026]
Our following paper was accepted by MethodsX (Q1), indexed by SCI and Scopus. Liang Z, Khotchasing K, Hoang N. Catching a Yawn: A Multimodal Experimental Protocol for Investigating Sleepiness under Visual and Auditory Yawning Stimuli featuring Human and Digital Characters. [19 April 2026]
Our joint research proposal with the Faculty of Medicine at Université Paris Cité, "Public Health Meets AI-Powered Persuasive Technologies: Addressing Emerging Health Risks in Young People through Responsible Digital Innovation", has been selected for the "Exploration France" Programme, an initiative of the Embassy of France in Japan aimed at promoting France–Japan research collaboration and academic exchange. (International collaboration with Université Paris Cité, France) [10 April 2026]
I was invited to serve on the Program Committee of the 9th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Big Data (ICAIBD 2026). [9 April 2026]
Congratulations to our 2025 summer research intern Hayden Morrison on receiving the 2026 OSU Student Impact Award! Well done, Hayden— we’re proud of you! [03 April 2026]
I was honored to receive an IEEE Japan Council Medal in recognition of over a decade of significant contributions to research and education in ubiquitous computing, personal informatics, and digital health. [23 March 2016]
Our Special Issue "Wearable Sensors for Continuous Health Monitoring and Analysis" received an Outstanding Special Issue Award. It has been an honor and a valuable learning experience working with Prof. Juan Antonio Holgado-Terriza and Dr. Pablo Pico-Valencia (University of Granada, Spain). Looking forward to continuing to contribute to the open science community and advancing research in wearable health technologies. The second edition of our special issue is now open for submissions. [18 March 2016]
We were honored to welcome Prof. Evangelos Karapanos (Cyprus University of Technology) and engage in inspiring discussions on interaction design and persuasive technologies. [17 March 2026]
I was invited to serve on the Program Committee of the International Workshop on Behavioral and Emotion Analysis through Wearable Technology (BEAT), co-located with the 20th IEEE International Conference on Automatic Face and Gesture Recognition (FG 2026). [16 March 2026]
Our following papers were published in the 19th International Joint Conference on Biomedical Engineering Systems and Technologies (BIOSTEC 2026). [3 March 2026]
Liang Z, Hoang NH, Melcer E, and Hwang D. Unlocking Collaborative Creativity: Co-Design Smartwatch-Based Serious Games for Sleep Hygiene Intervention. (Full paper acceptance rate = 25%, International collaboration with Carleton University, Canada)
Hoang NH, Liang Z. Decision Threshold Optimization in Machine Learning Models for Questionnaire-Based OSA Screening. (Full paper acceptance rate = 25%)
Priyadarshana YHPP, Senanayake AL, Liang Z. How Interpretable Are LLMs? A Multi-Metric Framework for Evaluating Synthetic Explanations in Digital Mental Health. (Full paper acceptance rate = 25%)
Liang Z, Hoang NH, Karunarathna TS. Biochemical Self-Tracking as Personal Informatics: Sensemaking and Actionability of At-Home Micronutrient Tests.
Karunarathna TS, Hoang NH, Liang Z. GlucoPatrol: A Multi-Stakeholder Dashboard for Contextual Exploration of Continuous Glucose Monitoring Data.
Koo J, Toendan KA, Akaiduzzaman AKM, Shimada ET, Liang Z. Thermal Guardian: An Assistive Wearable System for Home-Based Monitoring and Prevention of Bathing Related Health Risks in Older Adults.
Our following submissions were published in Sleep Medicine, a top journal in sleep research. [5 Feb 2026]
Liang Z, Chapa-Martell MA. (2026) Visualizing Temporal Patterns in Sleep Tracker Accuracy: A Novel Approach to Validating Consumer Sleep Technologies. Sleep Medicine 138(Supp.): 108640.
Liang Z. (2026) Improving Sleep Stage Classification from Consumer Wearables Using a Two-Level Machine Learning Framework with Selective Correction. Sleep Medicine 138(Supp.): 108599.
Liang Z. (2026) Unpacking the Discrepancy Between Subjective and Wearable-Measured Sleep: A Neurophysiological Perspective Using fNIRS. Sleep Medicine 138(Supp.): 108540.
Liang Z. (2026) Bedtime Stress and Prefrontal Cortex Hemodynamics During Sleep: A Pilot Study Using Wearable fNIRS and Salivary Biomarkers. Sleep Medicine 138(Supp.): 108304.
Liang Z, Hoang N, Karunarathna T. (2026) Uncovering Sleep-Linked Glucose Dynamics in Healthy Individuals Using Wearable Data. Sleep Medicine 138(Supp.): 108538.
Hoang N, Liang Z. (2026) Interpretable Machine Learning Using Questionnaire Data: A Scalable Approach for Sleep Apnea Screening. Sleep Medicine 138(Supp.): 108099.
Hoang N, Villeneuve J, Morrison H, Tu A, Karunarathna T, Hwang D, Chen S, Khotchasing K, Liang Z, Melcer E. (2026) Delivering Sleep Hygiene Interventions through Smartwatch-based Serious Sleep Games. Sleep Medicine 138(Supp.): 108585. (International collaboration with Carleton University, Canada)
I was invited to serve on the Program Committee of the International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Blockchain in Healthcare (ABH 2026). [17 Dec 2025]
Our following paper has been selected as an Editor's Choice Article, a recognition given to papers that highlight some of the best current research and are considered to be of high interest to readers. Thilini Savindya Karunarathna , Zilu Liang. Development of Non-invasive Continuous Glucose Prediction Models Using Multi-Modal Wearable Sensors in Free-living Conditions. [15 Dec 2025]
Proud to share that I have been elevated to IEEE Senior Member. This recognition reflects my ongoing contributions to ubiquitous computing, personal informatics, and digital health. I am grateful to my mentors, collaborators, and students for their support and look forward to continuing impactful research within the IEEE community. [4 Dec 2025]
Our following paper was published in ACM Transactions on Computing for Healthcare (Q1, top 10%), indexed by SCI, and Scopus. Priyadarshana YHPP, Liang Z, Piumarta I. DoRA: Dual-encoder demonstration Retriever Architecture to Transfer Large Language Models for Depressive Symptom Detection. [19 Nov 2025]
We will present the following paper at The 10th International Workshop on Health Intelligence (W3PHIAI-26), in conjunction with AAAI 2026. [15 Nov 2025]
Priyadarshana YHPP, Zhou N, Yang Y, Clevorn J, Jiang R, Liang Z, Krishnaswamy P. Enhancing LLM-Based Phenotyping via Structured Knowledge Representation and Chain-of-Thought Reasoning on Electronic Health Records. (International collaboration with A*STAR, Singapore)
Our master student Ms. Thilini Karunarathna received a Best Presentation Award at The 22nd English Presentation Competition in Ritsumeikan (EPCR 2025). [9 Nov 2025]
Our master student Ms. Thilini Karunarathna received a Best Presentation Award at The 7th World Symposium on Software Engineering (WSSE 2025). [25 Oct 2025]
Our lab received double awards (Oral Presentation Award X 2) at the 2025 IEEE 14th Global Conference on Consumer Electronics (GCCE 2025). [18 Oct 2025]
Our PhD student Ms. Nhung Huyen Hoang has been honored with the Young Investigator Award at the Asian Society of Sleep Medicine Congress (ASSM 2025), in recognition of her outstanding research achievements in digital sleep health. [7 Sep 2025]
I was invited to serve on the Program Committee of the 17th IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference (EDUCON 2026). [30 Oct 2025]
Our following papers have been published in the Proceedings of the 2025 IEEE 11th World Forum on Internet of Things (WF-IoT 2025). [27 Oct 2025]
Liang Z, Chen S, Hoang NN, Edward M. Sleep, Sensors, and the Smartwatch: Co-Design Interaction Modalities for On-Wrist Health Apps. (International collaboration with Carleton University, Canada)
Liang Z, Karunarathna TS, Baig A, Beten A, Lococo L. AIM-W: an Input-Adaptive Framework for Interoperable Physiological Modeling on Wearables.
We gave the following presentations at the 7th World Symposium on Software Engineering (WSSE 2025). [25 Oct 2025]
Liang Z. WearStreamer: Enabling High-Resolution Health Data Acquisition from Consumer Smartwatches.
Karunarathna TS, Hoang NH, Khurshe S, Beten A, Lococo Z, Baig A, and Liang Z. A Layered Software Stack for Web-Based Glucose Prediction and Visualization. (Best Presentation Award, International collaboration with Ohio State University, USA)
Raj P, Hoang N, and Liang Z. Software Engineering for PMS Self-Care: Integrating Clinical Assessment with Data-Driven Health Management on Smartphones.
Hoang N, Morrison H, Karunarathna TS, and Liang Z. Developing Serious Games on WearOS: A Software Engineering Perspective on Wearable-Game Integration. (International collaboration with Carleton University, Canada)
Lococo L, Karunarathna TS, Hoang NH, and Liang Z. GlucoSurf: Engineering Interactive 3D Visualization for Exploring Postprandial Glucose Dynamics. (International collaboration with Ohio State University, USA)
Our following papers have been published in the Proceedings of the 2025 IEEE 14th Global Conference on Consumer Electronics (GCCE 2025). Check out our presentation schedule here. [24 Sep 2025]
Saskovets M, Lohachov M, Liang Z. Cortisol Estimation Using Wearable Wristbands: Comparing Multilevel Modelling and Machine Learning. (Oral Presentation Award)
Karunarathna TS, Carvalho CF, Liang Z. Short-Term Glucose Prediction in Diabetes: Comparing Deep Learning Training Paradigms. (Oral Presentation Award)
Hossain FMM, Tan DJG, Mohamed IA, Ayun QQ, Matsunaga S, Junaideen AS, Liang Z. From Skin to Screen: Real-Time Wound Monitoring with a Smart Bandage and Smartphone.
Ahmed H, Liang Z. Design and Development of a Smartwatch App for Mood Tracking, Reflection and Regulation.
Senanayake A, Liang Z. CE-LAH: Contextualized Embeddings for Longitudinal Analysis of Human Anxiety.
Raj P, Liang Z. Design and Implementing a mHealth Application for Premenstrual Syndrome (PMS) Screening.
Karunarathna TS, Liang Z. Bottom-Up Feature Selection for Continuous Glucose Prediction Using Wearable Data.
I was invited to review for IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing, IEEE Transactions on Consumer Electronics, IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics, and IEEE Internet of Things Journal. [22 Sep 2025]
We were honored to welcome Prof. Arthur Kleinman (Harvard Medical School, USA) and engage in inspiring discussions on health, care, and self-knowledge. [17 Sep 2025]
We gave the following presentations at the World Sleep 2025, the premier international conference in sleep and circadian science and medicine. [6 Sep 2025]
Liang Z, Hoang N, Karunarathna T. Uncovering Sleep-Linked Glucose Dynamics in Healthy Individuals Using Wearable Data. (Acceptance rate for oral presentation = 14.3%)
Hoang N, Villeneuve J, Morrison H, Tu A, Karunarathna T, Hwang D, Chen S, Khotchasing K, Liang Z, Melcer E. Delivering Sleep Hygiene Interventions through Smartwatch-based Serious Sleep Games.
Liang Z, Chapa-Martell MA. Visualizing Temporal Patterns in Sleep Tracker Accuracy: A Novel Approach to Validating Consumer Sleep Technologies.
Liang Z. Improving Sleep Stage Classification from Consumer Wearables Using a Two-Level Machine Learning Framework with Selective Correction.
Liang Z. Unpacking the Discrepancy Between Subjective and Wearable-Measured Sleep: A Neurophysiological Perspective Using fNIRS.
Liang Z. Bedtime Stress and Prefrontal Cortex Hemodynamics During Sleep: A Pilot Study Using Wearable fNIRS and Salivary Biomarkers.
Hoang N, Liang Z. Interpretable Machine Learning Using Questionnaire Data: A Scalable Approach for Sleep Apnea Screening.
I was invited to serve on the Program Committee of the 38th International Conference on Software Engineering Education and Training (CSEE&T 2026). [27 Aug 2025]
Our following papers have been published in the Proceedings of the 73rd Annual Conference of Japanese Society for Engineering Education (JSEE 2025) - International Session. [27 Aug 2025]
Liang Z, Melcer E. Fostering Knowledge Convergence: Pedagogical Value of International and Interdisciplinary Research Collaboration. (International collaboration with Carleton University, Canada)
Hoang NH, Liang Z. Navigating Stress in Academic Life: An EDA Study of Stress Responses across Research Activities.
We gave the following presentation at the 2025 IEEE Conference on Computational Intelligence in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology. Karunarathna T, Beten A, Lococo L, Baig A, Hoang N. Impact of Cross-Subject Distribution Shifts on Glucose Prediction Using Wearable Data. (International collaboration with Ohio State University, USA) [23 Aug 2025]
Congratulations to our 2024 summer research intern Adam Saleh on receiving the 2025 OSU Student Impact Award! Well done, Adam — we’re proud of you! [28 July 2025]
I was invited to serve on the Program Committee of the international conference on engineering, technology, and education (TALE 2025), the flagship conference of the IEEE Education Society. [26 July 2025]
Our group has entered into a joint research agreement with Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine (Prof. Masahide Hamaguchi) and Nanoresearch Kyoto Co., LTD (CEO: Mr. Yasuhisa Fujii) to advance collaborative research in AI-powered FemTech. [21 July 2025]
I was invited to serve on the Program Committee of the 12th International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies for Ageing Well and e-Health (ICT4AWE 2026). [21 July 2025]
I was invited to review for the Journal of Sleep Research, a leading journal in sleep science and medicine. [17 July 2025]
We were delighted to welcome Prof. Huanyu Larry Cheng (Penn State University, USA), who gave a talk entitled "Standalone Stretchable Device Platform for Biomedicine" in our Ubicomp Research Seminar series. We had fruitful discussion on the potential applications of stretchable sensors to physiological sensing and healthcare. [16 July 2025]
We were delighted to welcome Prof. Chee Siang Ang (Imperial College London/University of Kent, UK) and Prof. Alex Covaci (University of Kent, UK) to our lab. We had fruitful discussion on digital health and human-computer interaction (HCI). [14 July 2025]
Our following paper was published by Frontiers in Sleep, indexed by Scopus. Liang Z, Melcer E, Hoang HN, Khotchasing K. Sleep Hygiene Games and Gamification: Where Are We and Where Are We Heading? (International collaboration with Carleton University, Canada) [14 July 2025]
Our following paper was published by Social Network Analysis and Mining (Q1), indexed by SCI, and Scopus. Priyadarshana YHPP, Liang Z, Piumarta I. GEM: Graph Attention Encoder for Multi-task Depression Severity Detection in Multi-party Conversations. [8 July 2025]
Our following paper was published in Comprehensive Psychoneuroendocrinology (Q2), indexed by PubMed, SCI, and Scopus. Marina Saskovets, Mykhailo Lohachov, Zilu Liang. Paralanguage as a Tool for Shaping Stress Response in Listeners: Multimodal Physiological Sensing Study. [20 June 2025]
Our following paper was published in SN Computer Science (Q2), indexed by Scopus. Priyadarshana YHPP, Liang Z, Piumarta I. Who Says What (WSW) 2.0 : Utterance Semantic Modelling for Speaker Identification in Text-Based Multi-Party Conversations. [16 June 2025]
I was invited to serve as a TPC member of the 19th International Conference on Health Informatics (HEALTHINF 2026). [12 June 2025]
I was invited to serve as a TPC member of the 2025 IEEE 14th Global Conference on Consumer Electronics (GCCE 2025). [29 May 2025]
Our following paper was published in Sensors (Q1), indexed by PubMed, SCI, and Scopus. Thilini Savindya Karunarathna , Zilu Liang. Development of Non-invasive Continuous Glucose Prediction Models Using Multi-Modal Wearable Sensors in Free-living Conditions. [18 May 2025]
Our following paper was published in Brain Sciences (Q2), indexed by PubMed, SCI, and Scopus. Marina Saskovets, Mykhailo Lohachov, Zilu Liang. Validation of a New Stress Induction Protocol using Speech Improvisation. [16 May 2025]
I was invited to serve as an external PhD thesis examiner for the University of Queensland, Australia. [15 May 2025]
Our following research proposal was accepted by the KUAS Advanced Research Grant (PI: Dr. Zilu Liang). Crushing Blood Sugar: Developing an AI-Powered Smartwatch System for Non-Invasive, High-Accuracy Glucose Monitoring in Daily life (スマートウォッチを活用した高精度・非侵襲型血糖モニタリングAIシステムの開発). [15 May 2025]
I was invited to serve as an grant reviewer for the Dutch Research Council (NWO, Dutch: Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek ), the Netherlands. [8 April 2025]
The following student team from our lab was selected as a Finalist Team of the 2025 IEEE CIS Student Grand Competition on Computational Intelligence in Biomedicine and Healthcare. [30 April 2025]
Karunarathna TS, Hoang NH, Khurshe S, Beten A, Lococo M. GlucoPatrol: AI-Powered, Non-Invasive Smartwatch System for Continous Glucose Monitoring.
Our lab contributed 1 full paper and 4 workshop papers at the 2025 ACM CHI conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2025), the premier international conference of Human-Computer Interaction. [28 April 2025]
Main conference: Liang Z, Hwang D, Chen S, Hoang NH, Khotchasing K, Melcer EF. User Preferences for Interaction Timing in Smartwatch Sleep Hygiene Games. (Acceptance rate = 7.8%)
HCI+Health Workshop
Liang Z. Statistical Lessons Learned in Personal Informatics Research.
Liang Z, Hoang NH, Karunarathna T. A Pilot Study on Sensemaking of Consumer Micronutrient Tests: Sufficiencies, Deficiencies, and Barriers to Improvement.
Ahmed H, Liang Z. (2025) Wandering as CLOUDS: Designing Soft Nudges for Mood Logging and Reflection on Smartwatches.
Human-Centered Evaluation and Auditing of Language Models Workshop (HEAL@CHI'25)
Yapa HPPP, Senanayake A, Liang Z. (2025) PIFU: A novel framework to evaluate the interpretability of synthetic free-text explanations in digital mental health. (The Most Trending Paper Mention)
Our following paper was published in Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence (Q2), indexed by PubMed, SCI, and Scopus. Priyadarshana YHPP, Liang Z, Piumarta I. (2025) ExDoRA: Enhancing transferability of large language models for depression detection using free-text explanations. [28 April 2025]
We will make the following presentation at The 48th Annual Meeting of the Japan Neuroscience Society. Saskovets M, Lohachov M, Liang Z. Towards Personalized Stress Monitoring: Multilevel and Machine Learning Models for Cortisol Prediction. [7 Apr 2025]
Our following paper was published in Frontiers in Digital Health (Q1), indexed by PubMed, SCI, and Scopus. Hoang NH, Liang Z. AI-Driven Sleep Apnea Screening With Overnight Blood Oxygen Saturation: Current Practices and Future Directions. [24 March 2025]
Our following paper was published in Sensors (Q1), indexed by PubMed, SCI, and Scopus. Hoang NH, Liang Z. Detection and Severity Classification of Sleep Apnea Using Continuous Wearable SpO2 Signals: A Multi-Scale Feature Approach. [7 March 2025]
Our following poster received an Honorable Mention for Best Poster Award at the 18th International Conf on Health Informatics, a premier international conference of health informatics. Senanayake A, Liang Z. (2025) Anxiety Detection in Reddit Posts through Emotion Dynamics Analysis. [22 Feb 2025]
Dr. Liang was honored to receive Special Recognition for Outstanding Review for her work at the 2025 ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI'25), the premier international conference in Human-Computer Interaction. This marks the third time she has received this recognition, following CHI'22 and IMWUT'21. [18 Feb 2025]
Our following paper was published in JMIR Mental Health (Q1), indexed by PubMed, SCI, and Scopus. Saskovets M, Saponkova I, Liang Z. Effects of Sound Interventions on the Mental Stress Response in Adults: A Scoping Review. (Acceptance rate = 25%) [5 Feb 2025]
Our PhD student Ms. Nhung Huyen Hoang won the Best Doctoral Candidate Project Award at the Doctoral Consortium at the 17th International Joint Conference on Biomedical Engineering Systems and Technologies (BIOSTEC 2024) for the project "Serious Gamification App for Improving Sleep-Wake Cycle and Sleep Education". [9 Jan 2025]
Our master student Mr. Cleber Franca Carvalho received a Best Presentation Award at the 4th International Conference on Big Data and Computational Intelligence (BDCI 2024) for the presentation entitled "Glucose Prediction with Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) Models". [14 Sep 2024]
Dr. Liang received a Best Presentation Award at the 6th World Symposium on Software Engineering (WSSE 2024) for the presentation entitled "Middleware Solution for Real-Time Physiological Data Streaming from Consumer Smartwatches". [14 Sep 2024]
Our PhD student Mr. Yapa Prasan won an Honorable Mention Award at the 2024 IEEE CIS Student Grand Competition in Computational Intelligence in Biomedicine and Healthcare, with the following project Vishadha: Early Smart Depression Detector. [30 June 2024]