TATRC visits IBM’s Thomas J. Watson Research Center
December 31, 2019 | Download PDF
Thomas J. Watson, an American Businessman, and for whom the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center is named after, once said, “To be successful, you have to have your heart in your business, and your business in your heart.”
On 26 September, TATRC Director, COL Jeremy Pamplin and Ms. Jeanette Little, Lab Lead for TATRC’s Mobile Health Innovation Center, had an opportunity to visit the Thomas J. Watson Research Center. The Thomas J. Watson Research Center is the headquarters for IBM Research and the center is comprised of two sites, with its main laboratory in Yorktown Heights, New York, and the second with offices in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It is part of one of the largest research organizations in the world tackling a variety of issues across different sectors.
During their visit, Ms. Jeanette Little (left) and COL Jeremy Pamplin (right) teamed up against IBM Watson in a friendly game of ‘Jeopardy!’.
While on campus, they met with Dr. Jeff Rogers, who leads IBM’s global research efforts in using artificial intelligence and internet-of-things or devices for healthcare. The work of Dr. Rogers and his team focuses on creating systems of integrated sensors, models, and closed-loop controllers to support personalized health. He has overseen the deployment of these systems to homes, cars, and medical facilities to address applications ranging from managing chronic disease to wellness.
One of the things that Dr. Rogers and his team of researchers are focused on is leveraging quantum computing to identify potential clinical conditions based on biosensor data. This approach could potentially enhance the efforts already in progress by TATRC in the operational environment. COL Pamplin and Ms. Little were able to tour the ‘Smart House’ on the research campus, and talk to numerous individual researchers about their work in the early detection of Parkinson’s disease using sensor technologies within the home. They were also introduced to the work being done at IBM about sensor data that can be collected from all areas of life including vehicles and social media, among other sources. These expanded technologies could potentially also impact the research TATRC has already done. There was also an opportunity to tour the quantum computer configuration lab and discuss possible options for a future IBM / TATRC collaborative research project leveraging artificial intelligence and quantum computing. “This visit demonstrates the importance of the work TATRC is already undertaking, but it also helps to build partnerships with respected industry leaders in the civilian sector which might help broaden the horizons of our future work,” COL Pamplin stated.
This article was published in the July 2020 issue of the TATRC Times.