Administrative Core

Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming society by enabling advances in computer vision, natural language processing, and several areas of biomedical research. Some modern AI models have become so powerful they have been dubbed “Foundation Models.” Unfortunately, rehabilitation researchers and people with conditions that limit mobility have yet to see much benefit from modern AI, and no foundation model exists for rehabilitation. Our Center for Foundational Artificial Intelligence for Rehabilitation (the FAIR Center) will establish a vital research program to enable rehabilitation scientists to apply state-of-the-art AI to diagnose, monitor, and improve the outcomes of rehabilitation. We have created a large-scale, high-quality dataset of movements and rehabilitation outcomes, the FAIR Dataset, and tools to automatically integrate data from many research studies, which is vital for the field and the research we propose. Through our Administrative Component we will: 1. Implement an effective administrative plan to coordinate the Center’s diverse activities. 2. Establish and leverage the expertise of our External Advisory Committee and Lived Experience Advisory Board. 3. Leverage strong institutional support, scientific environment, and clinical and industry ties to achieve outsized impact. 4. Set goals and evaluate the Center’s progress towards achieving these goals, including the quality and utility of the Center’s programs. 5. Collaborate with the NIH and other Medical Rehabilitation Research Centers funded under this call. 6. Award and mentor seed grant recipients to successfully launch their innovative and meritorious Pilot Projects. By providing high-quality software tools, data, and AI models, the FAIR Center will enable collaboration of unprecedented scale between bioengineers, clinicians, computer scientists, people with lived experience with mobility-limiting conditions, and others focused on rehabilitation. Our training efforts will create a new generation of rehabilitation scientists who are fluent in the strengths and challenges of AI. Our Center will be run by a tightly integrated clinical and engineering team, enabling us to appreciate the goals of people with lived experience, recruit participants to our studies, and rapidly create and share valuable new technology. Together with the FAIR Center community, we will achieve the potential of AI to understand and improve human movement, and increase ability for people with osteoarthritis, cerebral palsy, and many other conditions.