Biography

Kunal Mankodiya, PhD is the Director of Wearable Biosensing Lab and is an associate professor in the Dept. of Electrical, Computer, and Biomedical Engineering, University of Rhode Island, RI, USA since 2014. He is a recipient of NSF CAREER (2016) Award enabling research on “Internet of e-textile wearables for telemedicine”. In 2018, he received TechConnect Defense Innovation Award for his work on “Smart Textile Trouser”. He was recognized as the “Innovator-of-the-year” by Future Textiles Awards, Frankfurt, Germany in 2017. Mankodiya was also selected among “40 under 40” by Providence Business News in 2017. His embedded computing design of a smart-textile ECG system earned him the 2010 SYSTEX Award, University of Ghent, Belgium. He regularly organizes scientific workshops/symposiums on IOT for healthcare at various international conferences. He also organizes an annual 48-hour HealthHacks event to promote entrepreneurial thinking in the areas including IOT, healthcare, and aging. His course on Wearable IOT blends design thinking with IOT concepts to nurture entrepreneurial skills in students from various backgrounds. He pursued his postdoctoral research at Intel Science & Technology Center (ISTC) and Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), Pittsburgh, PA, USA. He received his Ph.D. degree from the University of Luebeck, Germany. He holds MS (University of Luebeck, Germany) and BE (Saurashtra University, India) degrees in Biomedical Engineering.