Research Visit at INM-7, Forschungszentrum Jülich
My PhD focuses on developing digital biomarkers for dementia with Lewy bodies, using smartphone and wearable sensor data to support clinical diagnosis and treatment monitoring. The project sits between clinical research, human-computer interaction, and applied AI — a combination that requires expertise no single group tends to have in full.
When I came across the NORA-HIDA exchange call and started exploring the Helmholtz centres, the group at INM-7 seemed like a good match: a strong focus on biomarker development for neurodegenerative diseases, and — as I learned more about them — the fortunate detail that they had already completed a longitudinal Parkinson's disease study using smartphone-based assessments for evaluating treatment effects that was well into the analysis pipeline. This was particularly relevant because PD and DLB share substantial motor and cognitive symptom profiles, and the study setting closely mirrored what we are building in my own project — except they had already navigated some of the stages we were still approaching. My own data collection was running behind at the time, so the chance to work with a complete, real-world clinical dataset in a closely related context was well-timed.
During the stay I worked through the full analysis pipeline: data engineering, quality control, signal processing, feature extraction, and machine learning. It was one of the more educational stretches of my PhD so far. Working closely with the dataset surfaced many lessons about what to do and what to avoid in our own study design — particularly around data structure, clinical labelling, and the kinds of problems that are much easier to fix early. Getting a clinical and neuroscientific perspective on analysis decisions I had been approaching primarily from a computational angle opened up lines of thinking I had not considered, and I also came across work from other group members that connected unexpectedly to parts of my own PhD I had not anticipated this visit to touch.
Attending seminars, institute symposia, and PhD defences gave me a genuine sense of how research operates in a different academic system. Talking with other students about their experiences, their projects, and how they navigate the PhD process was also genuinely valuable.
The collaboration has continued since returning. We are still finalising the work I started there, with the aim of a publication that will also serve as a direct methodological foundation for the next stages of my own PhD.
I am also genuinely grateful to the group and my host PI for being so welcoming throughout. North Rhine-Westphalia turned out to be a wonderful part of the world to spend a few months in — and between the Rhine, the affordable beer, and very good Japanese food, Düsseldorf made it very easy to settle in.