Aging Research, VEMI Lab Featured in BDN Article

The Bangor Daily News reported on a University of Maine tour of the Virtual Environment and Multimodal Interaction (VEMI) Laboratory and Advanced Manufacturing Center that was given to Maine Health Access Foundation members to showcase the university’s research into helping Maine’s elderly population age comfortably and conveniently. “At the VEMI Lab, we specialize in looking at the way people move around spaces and how they use different senses,” said Rick Corey, the lab’s director of operations. “[We’re] looking at creating an indoor navigation system that would be less intrusive than camera systems you would find in nursing homes.” Len Kaye, director of UMaine’s Center on Aging, spoke about the involvement of students in aging research. “I’ve been working in the field of aging for nearly 40 years and I’ve never seen the level of interest that we’re now seeing among our younger student population. They’re building careers in researching and serving an older population,” Kaye said. Carol Kim, a microbiologist and vice president for research and graduate school dean, also spoke to the BDN about the research. “What I’d love to see in the next three to five years is that Maine is the model for the country [in terms of aging research]. People in Oregon, in Idaho and across the country, people are going to be asking, ‘Oh, what is Maine doing about this issue because they are the leaders in aging,’” she said.