Updates
Meet the team: Dr. Vinod A. Mittal, MS (Orth.), MBBS, DPC [PPAG Member]
Please welcome Dr. Vinod A. Mittal, MS (Orth.), MBBS, DPC, as a patient partner on the MODES study. Dr. Mittal is an orthopedic surgeon who earned his MBBS and MS in Orthopedics from Bombay University, followed by a Diploma in Psychological Counseling from the Institute of Health Care Administration, Madras. His career spans Seth G.S. Medical College and King Edward Memorial Hospital (Bombay), the All India Institute of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (Bombay), General Hospital, Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), and ESIS Hospital (Andheri and Kandivali, Bombay), where he served as Orthopedic Specialist and Unit Head and later as a Member of the ESIC Medical Boards. He also worked as a Medical Interpreter and Hindi translator at Cambridge Health Alliance in Cambridge, MA, and has participated in numerous medical research projects. He is sole or first author of 12 publications in journals including the Indian Journal of Orthopaedics, Indian Journal of Surgery, Acta Orthopaedica Scandinavica, and the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery (British), as well as several patient education booklets, and he authored Low Back Pain and Low Back Care, published in English, Hindi, Portuguese, Spanish, and Haitian Creole. He is a life member of the Indian Orthopedic Association and Bombay Orthopedic Society and has received multiple travelling fellowships and international biographical honors.
Welcome, Dr. Mittal!
Connect with Dr. Mittal on LinkedIn.
Meet the team: Christine Pratt [PPAG Member]
Please welcome Christine Pratt as a patient partner on the MODES study. Christine has experienced knee pain and instability, with her knee giving out unexpectedly during everyday activities like walking or going downstairs. She was invited to participate in a knee pain study involving several weeks of physical exercise, and after the study ended, she continued the exercises twice a week out of her own determination. As a result, her knee pain has resolved, and she experienced additional benefits to her overall fitness. She has since shared the exercises that worked for her with friends and family and remains grateful to the team and researchers working to help others facing similar challenges. Christine is dedicated to advancing the science behind knee osteoarthritis and contributing to the development of interventions that can improve the lives of people living with this condition.
Welcome, Christine!
Meet the team: Olga Kibaya [PPAG Member]
Please welcome Olga Kibaya as a patient partner on the MODES study. Olga holds a Bachelor of Arts in Early Childhood Education and began her career as a Teacher's Assistant in Durham, North Carolina, where she worked for 10 years. After moving to Massachusetts in 2000, she transitioned into healthcare as a Home Health Aide (HHA)/Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA), spending the next two decades caring for older adults before retiring in 2020. She currently works part-time as an Elder and Treasurer at Global Evangelical Church. Her passion for the MODES Project is rooted in both her professional experience supporting older adults and her own personal journey with aging; she believes healthy aging begins with intentional choices, such as staying active and practicing self-care, and is passionate about encouraging others to age with purpose, strength, and dignity.
Welcome, Olga!
Meet the team: Alveta Haynes [PPAG Member]
Please welcome Alveta Haynes as a patient partner on the MODES study. Alveta is a dedicated advocate for health, fitness, and behavioral research who has actively participated in academic and community-based research initiatives for more than four decades. She remains committed to advancing health equity by helping bridge the health, information, and service gaps that have historically affected her community, and her volunteerism reflects a longstanding passion for fostering research, education, and community engagement that supports healthier, more informed, and empowered populations who are often underserved.
Welcome, Alveta!
Meet the team: Andrea [PPAG Member]
Please welcome Andrea, VP of PinkDrive USA, as a patient partner on the MODES study. Andrea spends more time at a desk than she'd like, which has sharpened her interest in finding better ways to manage osteoarthritis, particularly knee pain. She is an active person who stays fit through weight training and running, and has found that movement genuinely helps her knee. She is committed to staying active for the long term and is glad to bring that lived experience to this study.
Welcome, Andrea!
Partnership with Politecnico di Torino for implementation of INDIP system
Dr. Marco Caruso from Politecnico di Torino, Italy visited with us for a couple of weeks to provide training in the use of INertial module with DIstance sensors and Pressure insoles (INDIP) device for use in MODES study. INDIP will serve as the ground truth for real-world validation of digital mobility outcomes in our study, similar to the Mobilise-D initiative.
Thank you Dr. Caruso and Dr. Andrea Cereatti for supporting our work and sharing your expertise. Thanks also to our wonderful patient partners to serving as pilot participants!!
New partnership with Empatica
We have established an agreement with Empatica, an MIT spin-off, that offers continuous, passive, and unobtrusive digital monitoring solutions. As part of this agreement, we will include Embrace Mini as one of the devices in MODES study for technical validation of algorithms for mobility assessment in people with knee osteoarthritis.
Moving forward, we will explore Embrace Plus for daily life monitoring to derive multimodal digital biomarkers of real-world pain experience in this population.
We held our 2nd advisory board meeting
A warm thanks to all of our advisory board members. We had a productive conversation about our measures and regulatory strategy. Those who could not attend, you were missed.
Hanging with DEEP Measures team!
Jacqueline Thong and Arvind Ramanujam from DEEP Measures came by our lab for a hands-on session using the DEEP Measures Stack Model for MODES. Thank you for all the insights and looking forward to leveraging the DEEP platform to accelerate the development of our digital measures.
Meet the team: Doug Mitchell [Lab Manager]
Douglas Mitchell is a Research Fellow and Lab Manager in the Movement & Applied Imaging Lab at Boston University. He supports day-to-day lab operations and contributes to data collection for the MODES project. Doug received his bachelor’s degree in clinical Physiology from Central Washington University and his Master’s in Exercise Physiology from San Diego State University, where his thesis research examined gait biomechanics under dual-task conditions. His work investigated how cognitive load influences walking performance and whether current metrics adequately capture dual-task cost. Doug is particularly interested in biomechanics, human performance, and injury mechanisms in a variety of populations.
Outside the lab, he enjoys hiking, strength training, playing, coaching and watching rugby, and continuing to develop his cooking skills.