AI Diabetes Hackathon Team (2025)
The
AI
Diabetes
Hackathon
Team
(2025)
was
a
collaborative
group
of
faculty
and
students
from
the
Department
of
Computer
Science
and
the
College
of
Nursing
and
Health
Sciences
at
the
University
of
Massachusetts
Boston.
The
team
participated
in
the
2025
Paul
English
Applied
Artificial
Intelligence
(AI)
Hackathon,
where
they
worked
together
to
develop
innovative,
AI-driven
solutions
to
improve
diabetes
care.
Recognition
Our
team
received
the
People's
Choice
Award
at
the
2025
campus-wide
competition
for
developing
an
innovative
AI-powered
system
capable
of
detecting
emotional
distress
in
patient
conversations
and
generating
actionable
support
recommendations.
About the Project
Our
project
applied
artificial
intelligence
(AI)
and
natural
language
processing
(NLP)
to
analyze
real-world
conversations
of
individuals
describing
their
experiences
living
with
diabetes.
The
prototype
examined
14
individual
interviews
and
three
focus
group
discussions
with
adults
diagnosed
with
type
2
diabetes
to
detect
emotional
distress
expressed
in
their
stories.
It
generated
recommendations
based
on
the
type
and
source
of
distress
detected,
demonstrating
how
AI
can
provide
personalized
psychosocial
insights
that
inform
more
compassionate
and
person-centered
diabetes
care.
Technical Approach
The
team
applied
clustering
and
machine
learning
techniques
to
map
emotional
distress
trajectories
across
patient
interactions.
Using
both
voice
and
text
data,
the
prototype
visualized
distress
patterns
and
demonstrated
the
potential
for
AI
to
enhance
timely
psychosocial
care.
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Mentors
Xiaohui Liang
Professor | Department of Computer Science
Michelle Boakye
Assistant Professor | College of Nursing and Health Sciences
Students
Sankalp Vaish
Phd student | Department of Computer Science
Musah Abubakari
Phd student | College of Nursing and Health Sciences
Ayaz Ahmed Mohammed
Master's student | Department of Computer Science
EshanthKumar LalDas
Master's student | Department of Computer Science
Clark L Ohlenbusch
Undergraduate Student | Department of Computer Science
Join the Movement
Interested in collaborating or learning more about our ongoing AI and diabetes research? Email us at pcrg@umb.edu or call 617-287-4067 (office); 617-446-3828 (call / text)