Digital Frontiers in Frailty: Opportunities for Early Detection and Clinical Action Newton, MA January 23rd, 2026

OVERVIEW

MassAITC is hosting the Digital Frontiers in Frailty: Opportunities for Early Detection and Clinical Action Workshop. The free workshop will be held on January 23rd, 2026 at the Mount Ida Campus of UMass Amherst in Newton, MA and aims to bring together technologists (engineers, computer scientists, academic researchers, start-up founders) and clinicians (geriatricians, neurologists primary care providers) to redefine how we measure, assess, and provide time appropriate care for frailty. The workshop will include plenary speaker sessions from frailty and technology research experts, contributed poster and technology demo presentations, and a moderated discussion.

By 2060, it is estimated that nearly a quarter of the US population (over 95 million people) will be over the age of 65 and it is anticipated that a staggering 9.5 million older adults will be classified as frail — putting them at risk of adverse clinical outcomes, such as falls, hospitalizations, institutionalization, disability, and even mortality (Rubtsova 2019). With the rapid growth and adoption of wearables, home-based sensors, computer-vision systems, and powerful AI models, there is a large unmet opportunity to apply these technologies towards a digital, composite measure of frailty risk and now is the time to lay out the framework to act upon. To this end this workshop is to accelerate the development of a wholistic measurement measure of frailty, one that provides a more proactive opportunity for intervention by individuals (overall wellness and lifestyle factors) and more personalized health care from clinical providers to enable prevention of the progression of older adults to the more severe, i.e. irreversible stages of frailty.

SPEAKERS

We are excited to announce the current slate of speakers for the workshop!

Dae Hyun Kim

Associate Director & Senior Scientist, Hinda and Arthur Marcus Institute for Aging Research, Hebrew Senior Life

PROGRAM OUTLINE

Details for the Digital Frontiers in Frailty workshop program are provided below. The registration table will open promptly at 10:00am EST.

StartEndSession
10:00am10:30am

Arrival & Check-in

10:30am11:00am

Welcome and Opening Remarks#

  • Benjamin M. Marlin Professor of Computer Science, University of Massachusetts Amherst
  • Deepak Ganesan Professor of Computer Science, University of Massachusetts Amherst
11:00am11:30am

Session I: Towards Defining Frailty# 

  • Dae Hyun Kim, Associate Director & Senior Research Scientist, Marcus Institute for Aging Research, Hebrew Senior Life
11:30amNoon

Session II: Candidate Measures of Frailty for Digitization#

  • Megan Huisingh-Scheetz Associate Professor, Section of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine, University of Chicago
Noon1:00pmLUNCH
1:00pm2:00pmPosters & Device Demonstrations
2:00pm2:30pm

Session III: New Frontiers in Measuring Functional Reserve#

  • Calum MacRae, Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School; Vice Chair for Scientific Innovation in the Department of Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital
2:30pm2:45pmBREAK Coffee and Snacks
2:45pm3:55pm

Moderated Discussion: Towards Enabling a Wholistic Frailty Assessment#

3:55pm4:00pmClosing Remarks#
4:00pm5:00pmReception | Networking

# Indicates Sessions that will be simulcast during the Zoom Webinar for remote attendees

WORKSHOP REGISTRATION - FREE

This hybrid format workshop is being provided free of charge by MassAITC. In-person attendees will experience the full program with lunch, coffee, and snacks provided. A subset of the worksop’s programs will also be available for remote attendees. When registering using the button below, we kindly request that you select the option for attendance that aligns with your plans as there are limited spots available for in-person attendees. If your plans change, please contact us as soon as possible.

Poster Presentation Submissions

Device Demo Submissions

The workshop is seeking posters from clinician scientists and researchers (academic and industry) focused broadly on Frailty Syndrome and Resilience from implementation of clinical diagnostic practices to the discovery of novel biomarkers.   

Topics of interest include (but are not limited to) the following

  • Applications of AI & Technology to Frailty
  • Epidemiology and Measurement
    • Early life risk factors of frailty
    • Measurement of pre-frailty
    • Characterization of trajectory of frailty development or transitions between frailty states and their implications in clinical care including care transitions
    • Frailty and other geriatric syndromes (e.g. Cognitive impairment, falls) and their unique and/or intersecting pathophysiology
  • Novel biomarkers of pre-frailty/frailty and/or resilience
  • Frailty and Clinical Care
    • Frailty and comorbidity: distinguishing frailty and disease specific pathology 
    • Innovative clinical trials of interventions either targeting frailty and related biology or improving clinical and community care of pre-frail and frail older adults

We are accepting Poster Submissions on a rolling basis through Friday, January 9th.

The workshop is seeking device demonstrations from industry and academia alike. Demos should describe a technology or system that could be applied to measuring frailty and how it will be demonstrated at the workshop. 


Technologies of interest include (but are not limited to) the following

  • earables
  • implantables
  • wearables
  • ambient and remote sensing 
  • virtual and augmented reality 
  • integrated systems and platforms 
  • large language models (LLMs) and generative AI

We are accepting Device Demonstration Submissions on a rolling basis through Friday, January 9th.

IMPORTANT DATES

  • Workshop: January 23rd, 2026
  • Poster and Device Demo Submissions: Accepted on a rolling basis with a final acceptance date of submission on January 9th, 2026

VENUE DETAILS | PARKING | ACCOMMODATIONS

The MassAITC hosted “Digital Frontiers in Frailty: Opportunities for Early Detection and Clinical Action” workshop is being hosted at the UMass Amherst Mount Ida Campus located just outside of Boston. Included below are some helpful details about the venue including information regarding parking and directions from the nearest airport.  

 

Address

Mount Ida Campus of UMass Amherst
100 Carlson Ave
Newton, MA 02459

Websitehttps://www.umass.edu/mountidacampus/about
Telephone413-545-6223
Emailsrataj@umass.edu

Parking information:
There’s plenty of free parking available at the Mount Ida Campus close to the workshop venue in Wingate Hall. We recommend that attendees first look for parking in the Visitor Lot. If the Visitor Lot is full then attendees can look for additional parking along Shaw Road, Chapman, Tennis Courts and Malloy. Please do not park in the Wingate parking lot or along the North Loop Road to the Library. Please refer to this map for a detailed view of the campus. 

Directions from Boston Logan International Airport:

HOTELS

While there are no formal hotel blocks for this single-day workshop, there are several options available within a two-mile radius of the venue. 

 

Address

Residence Inn by Marriott Boston Needham

80 B Street
Needham, MA 02494

Distance to venue

 1.6 miles

Websitehttps://www.marriott.com/en-us/hotels/bosnh-residence-inn-boston-needham/overview/

 

Address

Sheraton Boston Needham Hotel

100 Cabot Steet
Needham, MA 02494

Distance to venue

 1.7 miles

Websitehttps://www.marriott.com/en-us/hotels/bossi-sheraton-boston-needham-hotel/overview/

 

Address

Homewood Suites by Hilton Needham Boston

200 First Avenue
Boston, MA 02215

Distance to venue

 1.8 miles

Websitehttps://www.hilton.com/en/hotels/bosnehw-homewood-suites-needham-boston/

 

CONTACT US: For questions regarding the workshop, please contact Suzanne Rataj at srataj@umass.edu