Timothy Holder

Timothy Holder is an MIT-IBM Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellow whose research lies at the intersection of psychophysiological engineering and affective computing. Specifically, Timothy is working to develop wearable, noncontact, and remote psychophysiological sensor systems for use in a wide range of dyadic, affective, and citizen science contexts. The aim of these systems is to quantitatively detect the psychophysiological states of humans and animals as they interact to form relationships and mutually beneficial bonds. Potential applications include canine-assisted therapies, human-robot interactions, telehealth, and monitoring/assessment of cancer fatigue, PTSD-related events, and autism-related issues. His postdoctoral research explores several new avenues, including achieving higher resolution in psychophysiological indicators of specific dyadic interactions such as student-teacher and employer-employee; adapting multimodal systems to various animals (dogs, horses, etc.); and actualizing telemedicine interventions. Timothy’s work has exciting potential to advance our understanding of causal attribution (connecting environmental and interaction inputs directly to mental, emotional, or physical outputs) and could be applied to support improved health and relationships in a wide variety of human-other contexts.