 |
Laura Arjona works in collaboration with Joshua R. Smith in Electrical and Computer Engineering and Chet Moritz in Rehabilitation Medicine. Laura’s research focuses on high performance readers and protocols for backscatter-based neural implants. Neural implants have the potential for significant impact in medicine, from restoring the use of limbs after spinal cord injury, to “electroceutical” alternatives to drugs, to brain-computer interfaces. Laura will be developing technology that will enable higher performance data transfer, as well as low latency bi-directional communication, which is essential for high-performance control of the nervous system. Laura holds a doctoral degree in Engineering for the Information Society and Sustainable Development from the University of Deusto in Bilbao, Spain. She received a master’s degree in Information and Communication Electronic Systems from UNED University in Madrid, and a bachelor’s degree in Telecommunications Engineering from the University of Granada. Laura was awarded a specialization fellowship from the University of Deusto, and a Researcher Staff Training fellowship from the Basque Country Government. She is co-funded by UWIN and the Center for Sensorimotor Neural Engineering. |
 |
Michael Beyeler works in collaboration with Ione Fine in Psychology and Ariel Rokem at the eScience Institute. His research focuses on improving stimulation algorithms for retinal prostheses. In patients with retinal diseases such as macular degeneration or retinitis pigmentosa, retinal prostheses are being developed to directly stimulate remaining healthy cells in the retina. However, translating visual input into electrical pulses that elicit desired visual perception is nontrivial and requires a deep understanding of the sensory processing in the human retina. Michael aims to further our understanding of how these devices interact with the underlying retinal circuitry by leveraging both computational and data-driven approaches, in order to develop the algorithms and tools that can power novel sight restoration technologies. Michael received a doctoral degree in Computer Science from the University of California, Irvine as well as a Master’s degree in Biomedical Engineering and a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from ETH Zurich, Switzerland. He is co-funded by UWIN and the eScience Institute. |
 |
Kinsey Bice works in collaboration with Chantel Prat in Psychology and Rajesh Rao in Computer Science and Engineering. Kinsey’s research aims to optimize language learning by identifying how to direct brain activity into the best state for learning. Using EEG and machine learning techniques, her project will provide insight into the functional correlates and flexibility of the brain’s activity at rest, and will help in developing software and technologies that could make it easier for adults to learn new languages. Kinsey received her doctoral degree from Pennsylvania State University in Psychology with a dual-title in Language Sciences and a Specialization in Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, and her Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and Spanish from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. |
 |
Lylah Deady works in collaboration with John Tuthill in Physiology & Biophysics and Andre Berndt in Bioengineering. Lylah’s research seeks to design and implement genetically encoded tools to query neuronal circuitry in real time. Her work at UW concerns developing a sensor to report neuronal inhibition and use it to identify the role of GABAergic input in Drosophila leg proprioceptive circuits. Lylah received her doctoral degree in Physiology & Neurobiology from the University of Connecticut. |
 |
Anisha Keshavan works with Jason Yeatman in Speech and Hearing Sciences and Ariel Rokem at the eScience Institute. Anisha’s research focuses on big data methods for analyzing neuroimaging data. Advances in MRI technology and image segmentation have enabled researchers to begin to understand the mechanisms of healthy brain development as well as psychiatric and neurological disorders. However, accurately measuring the brain at a scale large enough to accommodate genetic association and precision medicine studies is challenging; expert neuroanatomist tracings can take a long time, while automated algorithms are not accurate enough. Anisha aims to develop methods to combine the accuracy of experts with the speed of computers by incorporating crowdsourced image segmentation with deep learning algorithms. Anisha received a doctoral degree in Bioengineering from the UC Berkeley – UCSF Joint Graduate Program, and a Bachelor’s degree in Aerospace Engineering and Applied Mathematics from the University of California, Los Angeles. She is co-funded by UWIN and the eScience Institute. |
 |
Tom Libby works in collaboration with Sam Burden in Electrical and Computer Engineering and Tom Daniel in Biology. Tom’s research seeks design and control principles for locomotion, using a combination of model-based dimensional reduction and comparative experiments in animals and robots. His work at UW concerns multi-modal actuation of flight, and specifically investigates how moths coordinate inertial and aerodynamic forces with center of mass manipulation to execute and stabilize maneuvers. Tom received his doctoral degree and his bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley, where he was also the technical director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Bio-inspiration in Education and Research (CiBER). He is co-funded by UWIN and the Air Force Center of Excellence on Nature-Inspired Flight Technologies and Ideas (NIFTI). |
 |
Allie Widman works in collaboration with Steve Perlmutter and Adrienne Fairhall in Physiology and Biophysics. Allie’s research aims to understand how targeted activity-dependent spinal stimulation, a potential treatment for spinal cord injury, alters neuronal circuits to improve forelimb function. Through a brain-computer interface, this stimulation protocol induces plasticity based on precise timing of neural activity. The focus of her study is to identify the time course and specificity of this spike-timing-dependent plasticity in descending and somatosensory pathways using neurophysiology and modeling experiments. Allie received a doctoral degree in Neuroscience from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and a bachelor’s degree in Neuroscience from the University of Texas at Dallas. In addition to being named a WRF Innovation Postdoctoral Fellow, her awards include fellowships from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the National Institutes of Health. She is co-funded by UWIN and the Center for Sensorimotor Neural Engineering. |