Shayan Khodabakhsh


Photo of Shayan Khodabakhsh

I am a master’s student in Electrical Engineering at the University of Rhode Island. I work on machine learning for sensing human behavior and health, and on testing when those measurements can be trusted to drive decisions.

My thesis, Multimodal Characterization of Eating Microstructure for Closed-Loop Regulation, adapts vision-language models to measure bites from video and studies how detection errors change real-time eating-rate feedback. It is part of an NIH-funded project on diet, ingestion, and behavior sensing (DIBS), and I am extending it toward jaw and wrist sensing and multimodal fusion. I also work on synchronized EEG and motion capture for movement decoding. Earlier, I validated wearable inertial sensors against optical motion capture.


Recent News | All


Submitted to IEEE JBHI
Submitted a first-author paper to the IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics special issue on AI-based dietary assessment. It adapts a vision-language model to detect bites from a single camera and studies how detection errors change real-time eating-rate feedback.
Sep 2026
MobiDx '26 workshop paper
Our demonstration of a jaw-mounted inertial sensor for eating behavior microstructure appeared at the 1st Workshop on Hot Topics in Mobile and Wireless Systems for Health (DOI), with collaborators at URI and UT Austin.
2026
Poster at URI
Presented “A Vision Language Coach for Ingestive Behaviors” as a first-author poster at the ECBE Graduate Student Poster Competition.
Apr 2026
Started the M.S. at URI
Began the M.S. in Electrical Engineering in the Department of Electrical, Computer, and Biomedical Engineering.
Sep 2025

Select Publications | All


2026
Under review
Real-time Vision-Language Models for Behavioral Feedback: A Simulated Closed-Loop Study of Eating Rate
Shayan Khodabakhsh, Theodore A. Walls, Cody J. Arvonen, Adeleke J. Akinkurolere, Edison Thomaz, Kathleen J. Melanson, Reza Abiri
IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics (special issue on AI-based dietary assessment)
2026
Workshop paper
Demonstration of a Jaw-Mounted Inertial Sensor for Eating Behavior Microstructure Characterization
Cody Arvonen, Adeleke Akinkurolere, Ellen Baik, Emmerich Benavides, Shayan Khodabakhsh, Kathleen Melanson, Theodore A. Walls, Edison Thomaz
Proceedings of the 1st Workshop on Hot Topics in Mobile and Wireless Systems for Health (MobiDx '26) | DOI
2025
Journal
Consistency Is Key: A Secondary Analysis of Wearable Motion Sensor Accuracy Measuring Knee Angles Across Activities of Daily Living Before and After Knee Arthroplasty
R. C. Marchand, K. B. Taylor, E. C. Kaczynski, S. Richards, J. B. Hutchinson, S. Khodabakhsh, R. M. Chapman
Sensors 25(13), 3942 | DOI
2025
Journal
Evaluating a commercially available wearable sensor system and its associated calibration procedures for monitoring sagittal knee motion in patients undergoing total knee arthroplasty
R. M. Chapman, K. Taylor, E. Kaczynski, S. Khodabakhsh, S. Richard, J. B. Hutchinson, R. C. Marchand
The Knee 54, 316–328 | DOI