Advancing the Vision for Aging Research at the Semcer Center for Healthcare Innovation
As people age, they often face multiple conditions including diabetes, cognitive decline, mobility impairment and other health challenges. Over time, these overlapping issues can erode function and diminish quality of life. Yet while healthcare and research remain largely organized around individual diseases, people are focused on staying independent, remaining active and continuing to do the things that matter to them.
The Semcer Center for Healthcare Innovation (CHI) at Stevens Institute of Technology is taking that bigger-picture approach to help people maintain their quality of life. Leading that effort is Jennifer Kang-Mieler, Semcer CHI director, George Meade Bond Professor of Biomedical Engineering, and chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering. Under her direction, Semcer CHI is creating a healthy aging research model in which engineering, medicine and data science converge to understand aging as an interconnected process and accelerate translation into real-world healthcare solutions.
“Too often, we intervene after irreversible damage has already occurred,” Kang-Mieler explained. “Falls happen after balance has deteriorated. Dementia is diagnosed after substantial neurological changes have taken place. Vision loss from diabetic retinopathy is detected after vascular damage has accumulated. Once function is lost, it is much more difficult to restore. That is why earlier detection matters. Healthy aging is not about simply living longer. It is about preserving independence and quality of life.”
A multi-faceted focus on healthy aging
Since taking the Center’s helm in July 2025, Kang-Mieler has worked to shape the center’s strategic direction. Discussions with cross-disciplinary faculty highlighted strengths in people and technology, as well as a compelling opportunity to unite the next phase of growth around healthy aging.
“My vision is for Semcer CHI to become a leader in engineering-driven innovation in healthy aging,” she said. “Instead of waiting until problems become irreversible, we want to identify functional decline earlier and create opportunities for prevention. In addition to our internal expertise, we’ve been strengthening our external partnerships. It has been exciting to see everyone rally around a shared vision and discover new opportunities to work together.”
By bringing together molecular, physiological, behavioral and clinical measurements, the Center seeks to identify opportunities for earlier detection, intervention and prevention before disease becomes irreversible. Its multidisciplinary teams combine complementary expertise to understand aging as an interconnected process.
“When those perspectives come together, some of the most exciting innovations happen,” Kang-Mieler noted. “Stevens has exceptional strengths in engineering, imaging, sensing, AI and data science, and a culture that encourages collaboration. Our location also gives us opportunities to work with outstanding health systems and industry partners. My goal is to build teams that extend beyond Stevens and bring together academia, medicine and industry to address the challenges of aging.”
Planting the seeds of collaboration
To put this vision into practice, Semcer CHI launched the Aging, Integration, Multimorbidity and Signals (AIMS) Seed Funding Program.
Rather than simply funding individual projects, AIMS brings together multidisciplinary teams that integrate complementary expertise, multimodal technologies, and multi-scale approaches to investigate shared mechanisms of healthy aging.
The program is designed to spark collaborations, generate preliminary data and establish a foundation for larger research initiatives that improve health and independence across the aging process.
In its inaugural funding cycle, AIMS granted three $15,000 awards to support project development and future funding, with Stevens researchers serving as the contact principal investigators:
"Endothelial Biomarkers of Early Metabolic Dysfunction," with project lead Shang Wang, assistant professor of biomedical engineering, and team members Shima Hajimirza, Jennifer Kang-Mieler, Simon Mahler, Ravi Nataraj, William Querido, Ping Wang, Kenny Wong, Xiaojun Yu, Antonia Zaferiou and Yong Zhang.
"Vascular–Cognitive Biomarkers of Early Neurodegeneration," with project lead Raviraj Nataraj, associate professor of biomedical engineering, and team members Sang Won Bae, Jacob Gissinger, Yi Guo, Shima Hajimirza, Jennifer Kang-Mieler, Ting Liao, Simon Mahler, William Querido, Ilke Uguz, Ping Wang, Xiaojun Yu, Antonia Zaferiou, Damiano Zanotto and Yong Zhang.
"Neuromuscular and Behavioral Biomarkers of Mobility Decline," with project lead Antonia Zaferiou, assistant professor of biomedical engineering, and team members Sang Won Bae, Ting Liao, Jacqueline Libby, Ravi Nataraj, Yi Guo, William Querido, Xiaojun Yu and Damiano Zanotto.
The human touch
As the center's director, Kang-Mieler is working to shift healthcare from reacting to decline toward identifying problems earlier and preserving function longer.
She envisions the Semcer Center for Healthcare and Innovation as a thriving community of researchers, students, clinicians and partners focused on healthy aging, supported by sustained research programs, strong clinical and industry partnerships and successful trainees – with technologies that can be used in homes, pharmacies and primary care settings.
“Ultimately, healthy aging is personal,” she observed. “The grants we receive and the research we publish are important, but if the collaborations we build help people remain active, independent and engaged longer, then I think we will have succeeded.
Learn more about academic programs and research in the Department of Biomedical Engineering:
