Dr. Denny Yu: Research Stay at MCI Innsbruck

Inspired by exchange and innovation in Health Technologies

We had the great pleasure of welcoming Dr. Denny Yu, Associate Professor at Purdue University, to the Department of Medical & Health Technologies at MCI Innsbruck from February to June 2024. Dr. Yu, an expert in the fields of medical technology, human factors engineering and data science, has gained an international reputation with his academic career and research. With a Ph.D. in Industrial and Operations Engineering from the University of Michigan and a B.S. in Bioengineering from the University of California-Berkeley, he has focused his career on developing innovative technologies to improve human performance. His research focuses on developing real-time systems that recognize human workloads to improve usability and safety.

The Fulbright Scholarship and Dr. Yu's Initiative

Dr. Yu's stay at MCI was part of the prestigious Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program, which promotes international academic exchange, and research. This program enables leading scholars to forge new research partnerships and share their expertise worldwide. On his own initiative, Dr. Yu decided to spend his time at the MCI Innsbruck. With its unique blend of academic and practical research, particularly in the field of health technologies, MCI provided the ideal environment for his work. With the support of MCI, Dr. Yu was able to expand his research in the area of cognitive load in real work situations and gain valuable insights for the further development of performance enhancement technologies.

Denny Yu's experiences and insights

Dr. Yu looks back on an extremely successful and enriching time at MCI. “My experience as a Fulbright Professor at MCI was extremely rewarding - the results far exceeded my expectations. This is largely thanks to the close and fantastic support of the MCI team,” explains Dr. Yu. He particularly highlighted the enthusiasm and openness to collaboration and cultural exchange that he experienced during the weekly meetings and joint activities with the team. The synergies that resulted from the research and teaching collaborations were crucial to the success of his work.

Dr. Yu cites learning about the culture, history and personal stories of his colleagues as the most important insights from his time in Austria. These experiences will have a lasting impact on his future research, teaching, and personal experiences. He found it particularly valuable how the Austrian way of life and the collaboration at MCI broadened his perspectives. One concrete example is the planning of a short-term study program to pass on these experiences to students in the USA.

With a twinkle in his eye, Dr. Yu adds: “By the way, blue routes in Austria are harder than in the USA!” - an insight that he probably came across on the ski slopes.

Participation in projects

During his stay at MCI, Dr. Yu was involved in several exciting research projects:

• He co-taught wearables with Simon Winkler and contributed his expertise in user experience and ergonomics.
• Together with Yeongmi Kim, he was involved in the development of an intelligent cane for the visually impaired as part of a usability study. The device uses deep learning to recognize obstacles and inform users of the distance to these obstacles.
• As part of the VRodel project, which is led by Bernhard Hollaus, Dr. Yu supported research into improving safety when tobogganing. The virtual reality toboggan simulator made it possible to simulate real training conditions and thus increase safety in winter sports.
• In research in the field of simulation and ergonomics in surgery, under the direction of Daniel Sieber, Dr. Yu contributes his knowledge to important projects with international partners and supports regional companies with his expertise beyond the period of his stay.

Outlook for further collaboration

It was a great pleasure to have Dr. Denny Yu on our team for this time. The collaboration was not only successful, but also inspiring, and we are very much looking forward to continuing the cooperation in the future. We are particularly excited about the prospect of welcoming Denny and his students back to MCI next year as part of a study trip. This cooperation is a valuable contribution to the further development of our research activities and cultural exchange.