Active Research

Enhancing Office Worker Wellness

In the U.S., there are 81 million office workers who spend 75% or more of their day working at a desk. Unfortunately, increased daily sitting time is linked to significant health conditions, including cardiovascular diseases and diabetes. Multiple other health-related issues arise in these workers due to poor ergonomic habits. Health conditions are further exacerbated by building-level control of environmental conditions, most specifically lighting and temperature. 

Intelligent Workstation

One method of enhancing office worker health is to leverage advances in artificial intelligence to develop an intelligent workstation that can support healthy environmental and behavioral changes either automatically or via an interactive interface. Our transdisciplinary research team envisions the emergence of a genuine partnership and coevolution of workers and their workstations. Specifically, we are working to design an intelligent workstation that learns worker preferences and patterns. We are exploring the ways in which an intelligent workstation and worker can coevolve through an ongoing, bidirectional process of sensing, feedback and learning to adjust postural, thermal and visual conditions at the workstation and moderate poor behaviors.

Several important research challenges will be addressed by our work:

• Machine learning of user preferences, habits and patterns
• Identification of shared objectives and supportive actions
• Establishing machine-human symbiosis to take actions that progress toward best practices (e.g., healthiest)

Watch our video below to learn more about this exciting project:

Funding

Publications

Aryal, A., Becerik-Gerber, B., Anselmo, F., Roll, S. C., & Lucas, G. (2019). Smart desks to promote comfort, health and productivity in offices: A vision for future workplaces. Frontiers in Built Environment, 5, 76. https://doi.org/10.3389/fbuil.2019.00076 Show abstract

Presentations