See information on applying for UWIN’s graduate fellowships.

Current UWIN Graduate Fellows

caldwell David Caldwell is an M.D./Ph.D student in Bioengineering working with Rajesh Rao in Computer Science & Engineering and Jeffrey Ojemann in Neurological Surgery. His research focuses broadly on neural connectivity and processing. Specifically, his work aims to enhance neural connectivity through electrical cortical stimulation and characterizing the cortical response to stimulation in human patients implanted with electrocorticographic grids in preparation for epilepsy surgery. David received bachelor’s and master’s degrees in biomedical engineering from the University of Michigan. He is a joint fellow of UWIN and the Big Data for Genomics & Neuroscience (BDGN) Training Grant, and is an Achievement Rewards for College Scientists (ARCS) scholar.
mardoum Philip Mardoum is a Ph.D. student in the Neuroscience program working in the labs of Fred Rieke in Physiology and Biophysics and Rachel Wong in Biological Structure. His research focuses on sensory coding in micro-circuits of the retina, and how multiple distinct information streams can be processed in parallel within the same circuitry. He received a bachelor’s degree in Biological Sciences from the University of Chicago.
mohren Thomas Mohren is a Ph.D. student in Mechanical Engineering working with Steve Brunton in Mechanical Engineering and Tom Daniel in Biology. He is interested in how animals use mechanosensory arrays to make fast and robust control decisions. He uses computational models, sparse sensing techniques and neurophysiological approaches to study hawk moth flight control, with the aim of uncovering generalizable principles in biology that can inspire novel engineering solutions. Thomas received bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Aerospace Engineering from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. He is co-funded by UWIN and the Air Force Center of Excellence on Nature-Inspired Flight Technologies and Ideas (NIFTI, and was a recipient of a 2014-2015 Fulbright scholarship.
rusch Claire Rusch is a Ph.D. student in Biology working in Jeff Riffell’s lab. Her research interests focus on the how the environment shapes and is processed by the nervous system to control motor responses and behavior. Specifically, her project aims to better understand the neural circuits and processing of visual information and memory in honeybees– an attractive system for learning because of its robust behaviors and relatively simplified neuroanatomy that permits neurophysiological recording from identifiable neurons. Claire received a master’s degree in Neuroscience, Behavior and Cognition from Paul Sabatier University, France. She is co-funded by UWIN and the Air Force Center of Excellence on Nature-Inspired Flight Technologies and Ideas (NIFTI).
ShumanBenjamin Ben Shuman is a Ph.D. student in Mechanical Engineering working in the Ability and Innovation Lab under Kat Steele. His work uses clinically measured muscle activations (electromyography) to calculate a lower dimensional space of weighted muscle groupings called muscle synergies. Synergies have been shown to be altered in patients with neurological impairments such as stroke. Ben’s research aims to determine whether muscle synergies can be predictive of treatment outcomes in patients with cerebral palsy and whether changes in synergies after treatment correlate to changes in walking ability. Ben previously worked in industry as a design and manufacturing engineer and holds a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Washington.
WangNancy Nancy (Xin Ru) Wang is a Ph.D. student in the Computer Science and Engineering program advised by Rajesh Rao in Computer Science and Bingni Brunton in Biology. She is also a member of GridLab under Jeff Ojemann from Neurosurgery and GRAIL (Graphics and AI) under Ali Farhadi from Computer Science. Her interests lie in using unsupervised methods for data-intensive discovery in the field of neural decoding. Her project automates the decoding of electrophysiological signals using multiple modalities, such as video and audio, with methods from computer vision and speech processing. Nancy came to the University of Washington from Vancouver, Canada, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from the University of British Columbia. She is a joint Washington Research Innovation Graduate Fellow in Neuroengineering and Data Science.
WilsonNile Nile Wilson is a Ph.D. student in Bioengineering working with Rajesh Rao in the Department of Computer Science & Engineering and Jeffrey Ojemann in the Department of Neurological Surgery. She works with epilepsy patients, who have brain surface electrodes temporarily implanted, to better understand and improve how brain-computer interfaces adapt to changes in neural signals associated with learning a task. Specifically, her research aims to use error signatures already in the patients’ brains to automatically adjust the brain-computer interface decoding. Nile received a bachelor’s degree in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Virginia. In addition to being named a WRF Innovation Graduate Fellow, she is an Achievement Rewards for College Scientists (ARCS) scholar and is involved with student leadership at the Center for Sensorimotor Neural Engineering.

Emeritus UWIN Graduate Fellows

Bjanes David Bjanes is a Ph.D. student in Electrical Engineering working with Chet Moritz in Rehabilitation Medicine and Josh Smith in Electrical Engineering. His project tackles current issues with delivering sensory information to the brain for eventual use in closed-loop brain computer interfaces. David comes to the UW with a master’s degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Pittsburgh and a bachelor’s degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Cornell University. In addition to being named a WRF Innovation Graduate Fellow, he is a recipient of an NSF Engineering Research Center Graduate Research Award from the Center for Sensorimotor Neural Engineering.
Browning Yoni Browning is a Ph.D. student in the Neuroscience program working in the labs of Beth Buffalo and Adrienne Fairhall in Physiology and Biophysics. Broadly, he is interested in computation and information processing in neural systems. His research aims to understand how space is represented in the hippocampus and entorhinal cortex, and how these representations allow for navigation, strategy, and spatial memory. To do this, he studies behavioral, single neuron, and neural population data recorded from macaque monkeys performing navigation tasks in a virtual reality environment. Yoni received a bachelor’s degree from the Applied and Computational Math Sciences program at the University of Washington. He is a joint fellow of UWIN and the UW Computational Neuroscience Training Grant.
Casimo Kaitlyn Casimo is a Ph.D. student in the Neuroscience program, where she is a member of Jeff Ojemann’s lab in Neurological Surgery. She studies the electrophysiology of human resting state and task based brain connectivity, working with patients undergoing epilepsy surgery. She is especially interested in changes in connectivity related to brain-computer interface use and learning. Kaitlyn received a bachelor’s degree in Neuroscience from Pomona College, where she studied physiological responses to stress. She is a joint fellow of UWIN and the UW Computational Neuroscience Training Grant.
Mukherjee Gaurav Mukherjee is a Ph.D. student in Mechanical Engineering working in Kat Steele’s Ability Lab. His research focuses on creating enhanced hand orthoses with neural control for individuals with impaired hand function. He is developing low cost, accessible, 3D-printed designs that can be used outside the lab to evaluate the effect of these neuro-orthoses on motor function and learning in everyday life. Gaurav comes to the UW with a master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Cincinnati and a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from University of Pune, India.  In addition to being named a WRF Innovation Graduate Fellow, he has been awarded a First Start fellowship by the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Washington.
Wu James Wu is a Ph.D. student in Bioengineering working with Rajesh Rao in Computer Science and Jeff Ojemann in Neurosurgery.  His research aims to reveal the complex way by which the human brain controls hand and arm movement, in hopes of one day being able to engineer neuroprosthetic implants that can reverse upper body paralysis caused by trauma or disease. He examines human brain (electrocorticographic) and muscle (electromyographic) signals using tools from machine learning, signal processing, and control theory. James has a bachelor’s degree in bioengineering from the University of California San Diego. In addition to being awarded a WRF Innovation Graduate Fellowship, he is involved in student leadership at the Center for Sensorimotor Neural Engineering, and has coauthored 15 publications in the field of neuroengineering, neuroimaging, and optical engineering.