Kanav Kahol

Assistant Professor

425 N 5th Street #235, Department of Biomedical Informatics, School of Computing and Informatics, Arizona State University, Phoenix, Arizona 85004

kanav [at] asu dot edu

Ph: 602 827 2546

Fax: 602 827 2567

(THIS WEBSITE IS UNDER CONSTRUCTION)

Brief Biography

Dr. Kanav Kahol is an assistant professor in department of biomedical Informatics at Arizona State University. He completed his PhD in 2006 in Arizona State University in the department of computer science and engineering. His PhD dissertation was titled "Distal Object Perception through Haptic User Interfaces". He completed his Masters of Science in computer science and engineering in Arizona State University in 2003. His Master’s thesis was titled "Gesture Segmentation in Complex Motion Sequences". He completed his bachelors from Guru Nanak Dev Engineering College, Ludhiana in 2001. He is affiliated with Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center, Phoenix as a research faculty in simulation education and training center (SimET Center). He is also affiliated with Center for Cognition and Decision Making (CDMC) at Arizona State University and is the manager of the Human Machine Symbiosis Lab.

Dr. Kanav Kahol's primary research interest lies in development of human-machine symbiotic entities. His background in multimedia information systems and cognitive psychology has fueled a theoretical construct that both humans and machines have certain features that are both positive and negative. This theoretical construct catalyzes a design philosophy in which machines are designed to accentuate human's positive traits and compensate for their negative traits (mutualism). It also recognizes the fact that bad design can lead to mutually destructive results for both the involved entities and design considerations always need to bear in mind this possibility (parasitism). The design is viewed as an evolutionary paradigm in which rewards are made implicit and not explicit for the entities. This makes the reward process ubiquitous not requiring humans or machines to make special efforts in symbiotic participation. Dr. Kahol conducts applied research in human machine symbiosis in the area of haptic user interfaces, multimodal simulations, human movement analysis and psychology of haptics.

The projects Dr. Kahol is involved in reflect his primary research interest. In the area of cognitive surgical simulations, modeling complexity and error in critical care, assistive devices, investigations on haptic memory in Alzheimer's patients and golf movement analysis, Dr Kahol and his students explore means to render the human-machine entity productive.

Dr. Kahol’s teaching interest revolves around multimedia information systems, human computer interaction, pattern recognition, virtual reality and simulation environments.

Dr. Kahol has published in several journals and conferences. He has guest edited a special issue in IEEE Multimedia magazine on haptic user interfaces in multimedia systems. He has organized the haptics in ambient systems (HAS) workshop in Feb 2008. He and his students have won 4 best paper awards (till Jan 2008).

Dr. Kahol has been awarded several research grants notably including, National Science Foundation’s award titled "SGER: Incorporation of Psychological Basis of Haptics in the Design of Assistive Haptic User Interfaces" NSF Award 0554698 (co-PI PI Dr Sethuraman Panchanathan), James S McDonnell’s Foundations award on complexity and error in critical care (co-PI PI Dr Vimla Patel).

News

-Wii based surgical training gets publicity. (search wii surgery on google news or click here)

-Awarded $5M grant from James S McDonnell Foundation as a co-PI with Dr Vimla Patel (Pi) and Dr Trevor Cohen (co-PI).

-Awarded $40,000 grant from ASU Mayo Foundation for exploring haptic memory of patients with Alzheimer's disease

-Mario Leyba a surgical resident working with Dr Kahol won the best paper award at American Surgical Education 2007 on the effect of fatigue on cognitive skills of a surgeon.