ADULT DEVELOPMENT, ADAPTATION & TECHNOLOGY LABORATORY
SHANNON MEJÍA, PH. D
The ADAPT Laboratory applies a life-span developmental perspective to examine the potential for health technologies to support older adults and their families in aging successfully. This means that we view aging as a lifelong process of adaptation to change. As individuals age, changes in social, psychological, and functional resources mandate the creation of new strategies to meet the challenges faced in daily life.
Our interest in technology is grounded in a commitment to support individuals in living life to the fullest regardless of their age and ability. We aim to inform the development, implementation, and use of health technologies with sensitivity to older adults’ biopsychosocial needs, goals, and abilities.
Research Projects
Current projects at the AdaptLab pursue a deep understanding of the internal processes older adults’ use to monitor and manage both demands in daily life and the personal and technological resources necessary to meet those demands.
We are dedicated to:
- Inform science and practice of successful aging.
- Improve health and well-being across the life span for all individuals.
- Provide a creative, engaging, collaborative environment for research and idea generating.
Recent Publications
Chin, J., Desai, S., Lin, S., & Mejía, S.T. (2024). Like my Aunt Dorothy: Effects of conversational styles on perceptions, acceptance and metaphorical descriptions of voice assistants during later adulthood. Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing.
Mejía, S. T., Su, T.-T., Washington, F. C., Golinski, S., & Sosnoff, J. J. (2023). Everyday experiences of physical function and awareness of fall risk in older adulthood. Innovation in Aging, 7(4), igad037. https://doi.org/10.1093/geroni/igad037
Mejía, S. T., Su, T.-T., Hsieh, K. L., Griffin, A. M., & Sosnoff, J. J. (2023). The dynamic interplay of objective and subjective balance and subsequent task performance: Implications for fall risk in older adults. Gerontology, 69(5), 581–592. https://doi.org/10.1159/000528649
Liao, J., Scholes, S., Mawditt, C., Mejía, S. T., & Lu, W. (2022). Comparing relationships between health-related behaviour clustering and episodic memory trajectories in the United States of America and England: A longitudinal study. BMC Public Health, 22(1), 1367. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-022-13785-7
Nielsen, K. E., Mejía, S. T., & Gonzalez, R. (2022). Deviations from typical paths: A novel approach to working with GPS data in the behavioral sciences. International Journal of Health Geographics, 21(1), 5. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12942-022-00305-4