Dr. Bruce Wallace & Dr. Frank Knoefel
Dr. Bruce Wallace
Dr. Wallace is Executive Director of the AGE-WELL National Innovation Hub on Sensors and Analytics to Monitor Memory and Mobility (SAM3), an Adjunct Research Professor at Carleton University, and an Affiliated Investigator at Bruyère Research Institute. He holds a B.E.Sc. from Western, an M.Eng. and Ph.D. from Carleton University, and has studied business at MIT Sloan and UNC Kenan-Flagler. He is an IEEE Senior Member with more than 20 patents.
He worked 24 years in the technology sector at BNR, Avaya and Nortel including research and development, product and business strategy, and as a business leader with global responsibility.
He leads SAM3 which is a collaboration between the Bruyère Research Institute and Carleton University in partnership with the AGE-WELL Network Centres of Excellence. Its focus is research and innovation projects focused on technology-based solutions to enable an aging population to maintain a healthy and independent lifestyle. These solutions are co-created with industry, clinical, academic, and older adults and their families.
Within SAM3, he is focused on technology solutions to enable the independence of aging adults. This includes fundamental research on novel sensor designs that include force and pressure sensors through to algorithms using machine learning and AI techniques. The work of SAM3 is founded on a basis of multi-disciplinary research that brings together diverse skills of technology, medicine, social sciences, aging adults and their care team. Together, it builds solutions that are truly focused on the needs of society, and especially the aging population.
Dr. Frank Knoefel
Dr. Frank Knoefel is the Bruyère Chair in Primary Health Care Dementia Research and a physician at the Bruyère Memory Program in Ottawa. He has been providing care to aging Canadians for some 30 years, focusing initially on geriatric rehabilitation and for the last 15 years on cognitive challenges. He holds appointments in the Department of Family Medicine, University of Ottawa and Systems and Computer Engineering, Carleton University. Frank also has extensive hospital administration experience, including being Medical Director, Chief of Medical Staff and Vice-President.
His research interests are focused on the use of sensors to facilitate Aging in Place. He is co-founder of the TAFETA and AGEWELL NCE Inc. SAM3 National Innovation Hub programs of research. Following his clinical practice, early work was focused on bed-based sensors to monitor physical well-being, such as transfers out of bed and breathing. Current research is now focused more on technology to monitor and support cognition. Sensors in the home can monitor activities of daily living and soon artificial intelligence will be able to help cue a person. Similarly, cognitive decline can affect driving ability, and the team is studying how technology can help assess and improve driving safety in older drivers.
Frank has been fortunate to share his life with Kimberly, and they have 2 wonderful daughters, Arianna and Karina. Outside of clinical practice and academia, he is also a musician, amateur photographer, does hobby construction, and enjoys the rush of snowboarding.
