Picture a hospital emergency department where wait times are measured in minutes rather than hours, or millions of people with diabetes being able to check their blood sugar level without pricking a finger.
Kennesaw State University researcher Maria Valero has imagined those things, and she, her colleagues and students are working to make them a reality.
Valero leads the Internet of Things as a Service Research Group in the College of Computing and Software Engineering, where faculty and students spend their days thinking of ways to make healthcare more effective and easier for patients.
“You always enjoy the research process more when you know it has the potential to help people,” said Valero, an assistant professor of information technology. “That is something that motivates me more than grant money or prestige.”
In its current research, the group is exploring using wearable technology to help quickly diagnose emergency room visitors to create better outcomes for patients and reduce wait times.
Another major research focus is GlucoCheck, a device that uses light shown through a finger or an ear lobe to determine blood sugar level. Beyond that, Valero’s students have created a mobile phone app, as well as an interface with Amazon’s virtual assistant Alexa that can give GlucoCheck users information on how to mitigate blood sugar spikes.
Valero traces her affinity for technology back to her childhood in Venezuela, where she originally dreamed of becoming a writer. When she was 12, her father bought a personal computer she used to transcribe her handwritten stories. She became fascinated with how the machine worked and after high school decided to apply to study computer engineering at Universidad Nacional Experimental del Táchira. After earning a master’s degree, she returned there to teach, later becoming the first woman to be chair of the computer engineering department.
“It was a relatively new program, and I think I was one of two girls in the second undergraduate class to be admitted,” Valero said. “I got used to being one of the few women or the first woman in my career, though there are many more women in the field now.”
Two women at Kennesaw State became important mentors after Valero’s arrival in 2020. The first was Rebecca Rutherford, then-chair of the Department of Information Technology, who has since retired, and the second is Chi Zhang, professor of information technology.
“Becky was very helpful in guiding me to know who the students are here at Kennesaw State and how to teach them,” Valero said. “Chi has given me lots of good research advice, which has given me a lot of confidence.”
Valero credits her students for her success as a teacher and researcher.
“I love teaching, and students are the real heroes behind successful faculty,” she said. “They are here because they are smart, and if you guide them well, they will succeed. My work and success are because of them.”