JHU BME

Laboratory for Computational
Motor Control

Research Overview

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Journal Club

Brain Imaging

Lab Members
Lab Calendar
Lab Scrap Book
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	Current lab members Alumni: Postdoctoral Fellows Alumni: PhD students Alumni: MS students Alumni: undergraduate students
	Current Lab Members
	Robert Nickl rnickl1 at jhmi dot edu BME PhD program.  Cost of motor commands and effort, and its relation to Parkinson’s disease.  BSEE from Univ. Pittsburgh. Robert is an NSF Fellow.
	Jean-Jacques Orban de Xivry jj at jhu dot edu Postdoctoral Fellow.  Neural basis of the timescales of motor memory using transcranial magnetic stimulation.  PhD in Applied Sciences from Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium.  BS in Applied Mathematics, UCL, Belgium.
	Aysha Keisler ayshakeisler at gmail dot com Postdoctoral Fellow.  The links between the declarative learning and motor learning, the effects of sleep, and the function of the basal ganglia.  PhD in Psychology from University of Virginia.
	Mollie Marko mkmarko at jhu dot edu BME PhD Program.  Imitation, autism, and motor control.  BS from Rutgers University.
	Adrian Haith Adrian.haith at jhu dot edu Postdoctoral Fellow.  Uncertainty, optimality, temporal discounting, and generative models of motor control.  PhD in Neuroinformatics from University of Edinburgh, Scotland, undergraduate degree in Mathematics from Cambridge University.
	Damien Pastour Damien.pastour at jhu dot edu Visiting research student.  Damien is a medical student from France, visiting our lab to work on a collaborative research project with Yves Rossetti, Univ. of Lyon.
	Sarah Pekny sep205 at gmail dot com BME PhD program. BSEE from Penn State Univ.
	Michelle Harran michelleharran at gmail dot com Undergraduate researcher. BS in BME from Johns Hopkins.
	Thomas Reppert trepper1 at jhmi dot edu BME PhD program. BS in Aerospace Engineering from Virginia Tech. Post-bachelorette in Mathematics from University of Zaragoza, Spain. Thomas is an NSF Fellow.
	Alumni: PhD students
	Kurt Thoroughman PHD in BME completed on 12/1999. Thesis: “Human motor learning in stationary and non-stationary novel dynamical environments”.  His thesis results were published in Journal of Neuroscience and Nature.  Kurt is currently an Associate Professor of BME at Washington University, St. Louis.
	Maurice Smith PhD in BME completed on 12/2000.  Thesis: “Error feedback control in Huntington's Disease and Cerebellar Degeneration”.  Maurice won the David Israel Macht Award in recognition of outstanding scientific work by a doctoral student in the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.  His results were published in Nature, Journal of Neurophysiology, PLoS Biology, and Trends in Cognitive Sciences.  After completion of his PhD, Maurice finished his MD at Johns Hopkins, and then did a one year postdoc in our lab.  He is currently an Assistant Professor in the Division of Engineering at Harvard University.
	EunJung Hwang Ph.D. in BME completed on 12/2004.  Thesis: “Representation of proprioceptive information for generation of arm dynamics”.  Here thesis results were published in PLoS Biology, Experimental Brain Research, and Neural Engineering. EunJung is currently a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Richard Andersen at CalTech, Pasadena, CA.
	Haiyin Chen PhD in BME completed on 12/2006. Thesis: “Cerebellar and Cerebellar-Thalamic Contributions to Motor Adaptation”.  Haiyin was the first student in the lab to do psychophysics as well as human neurophysiology via single cell recordings.  Her thesis results were published in Cerebral Cortex and Journal of Neuroscience.  She subsequently became a postdoc at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
	Vincent Huang PhD in BME completed on 12/2007.  Thesis: “Enhancing motor learning through theoretical and experimental methods”.  Vincent discovered that retention properties of memories are a reflection of the statistics of the environment. His results were published in three papers in the Journal of Neurophysiology.  He subsequently became a postdoc in laboratory of John Krakauer at Columbia University.
	Minnan Xu-Wilson PhD in BME completed on 5/2010.  Thesis: “Adaptive control of saccades via internal feedback”. Minnan discovered that stimulus value discounted the motor commands that initiated eye movements, and that a function of the cerebellum was to monitor this variability and compensate for it. Minnan also discovered that the fast timescale of adaptation was impaired in cerebellar disease. Finally, Minnan discovered that transcranial magnetic stimulation of the brain could disrupt an ongoing saccade, but that this perturbation was compensated with motor commands that arrived later in the same movement. She subsequently became a postdoc at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary at Harvard University.
	Sarah Hemminger PhD in BME completed Jan. 2010. Thesis: “Linking error, passage of time, the cerebellum and the motor cortex to the multiple timescales of motor memory”. Sarah was named a Siebel Foundation Scholar in Bioengineering in 2009, and was awarded an NRSA from the NIH in 2008. She discovered a latent form of motor adaptation in patients with severe cerebellar damage. She also discovered that sudden performance errors in a well-learned task did not produce unlearning, but installed a new, fragile memory that with passage of time became strengthened.
	Alumni: Postdoctoral Fellows
	Jun Izawa Postdoctoral Fellow 2005-10.  The role of reward and motor costs in motor learning.  Optimal feedback control processes and long-term learning in reach adaptation. Representation of the internal models of action in the autistic brain. Jun was subsequently named Research Assistant Professor at The University of Electro-Communications, Tokyo, Japan.
	Arash Hadipour-Niktarash Postdoctoral Fellow 2005-07.  Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation and the role of motor cortex in adaptive control of reaching.  Arash’s results were published in Journal of Neuroscience.  Arash subsequently joined the neuroscience program at Emory university and is now in the neurology residency program at University of Chicago.
	Jörn Diedrichsen Postdoctoral Fellow 2003-2006.  Jöern performed the first ever robot-assisted fMRI experiment on reach adaptation, and produced numerous innovations in the field of human brain imaging.  His results were published in two papers in Journal of Neuroscience, and two papers in Neuroimage.  Jörn is now a Senior Lecturer (Assoc. Professor) at University College, London.
	Sang June Oh Postdoctoral Fellow 2005-2006. PhD from Columbia University.  Effect of sensory noise on adaptive control processes in reaching.  Subsequently a postdoc at Yale University and then Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at California State University at Fullerton.
	Opher Donchin Postdoctoral Fellow 2000-2004. Opher won the BME Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellow award in 2000.  Research on application of linear dynamical systems to system identification of human motor adaptation.  His results were published in Journal of Neurophysiology and Journal of Neuroscience.  Subsequently Assistant Professor of BME at Ben Gurion University, Israel. Opher is now Senior Lecturer (Assoc. Prof.) at Ben Gurion.
	Thrishantha Nanayakkara Postdoctoral fellow from 2002 to 2003. Worked on the ability of the brain to predict consequences of motor commands and published his results in Journal of Neurophysiology. Subsequently an Assistant Professor in Division of Engineering, King's College, London.
	Goran Djordjevic Postdoctoral Fellow 2000-2002. Designed and built controllers for a 6-legged running robot.    His results were published in IEEE Transactions in Robotics.  Subsequently an Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering at University of Nis.
	Joseph Francis Postdoctoral Fellow 2001-02.  Effect of time on error-dependent learning.  Results published in Experimental Brain Research.  Subsequently a postdoc in Laboratory of John Chapin, and then Assistant Professor at Dept. of Physiology, State University of New York.
	Ash Rao Postdoctoral Fellow 2000-01. Learning of cue-dependent force fields and the ability of the human brain to associate context to internal models of fields. Subsequently an Assistant Professor of Clinical Physical Therapy at Columbia University School of Medicine.
	Zahra Moussavi Postdoctoral Fellow 1/99-10/99. Geometry of generalization in learning of internal models. Published results in Journal of Neuroscience. Subsequently an Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Manitoba, Canada. She is now Professor and Canada Research Chair at University of Manitoba.
	Caterina Rosano Postdoctoral Fellow 1998-99. Research on electromyographic signs of motor dysfunction in genetically at risk but clinically asymptomatic Huntington's Disease individuals. Subsequently Assistant Professor of Epidemiology, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. She is now Associate Prof. of Epidemiology at Univ. of Pittsburgh.
	Alumni: Masters Students
	Courtney Haswell MS BME program.  Thesis completed on 5/2009. Motor control in autism.  Results published in Nature Neuroscience.
	Vincent Ethier Thesis completed on 6/2008: “Adaptive control of saccades in humans”.  Vincent’s work focused on using principles of optimal control to quantify changes in human saccade trajectories during adaptation.  Vincent received his undergraduate training in Physics and Mathematics in the École Polytechnique of Montreal, and then at the École Polytechnique of Paris.  He is now a project manager at Phillips MRI in Japan.
	Christine Lee Thesis completed on 6/2007: “Time-dependent contribution of primary motor cortex to visuomotor memory retention”.  Christine’s work focused on using transcranial magnetic stimulation of the primary motor cortex to investigate the neural basis of motor learning.  She subsequently joined the MD/PhD program at Stanford University.
	Tushar Rane Thesis completed on 5/2007: “Effects of changing noise in dynamics of reaching on changes in control of reaching: an optimal control perspective”. Tushar subsequently joined the BME PhD program at Johns Hopkins University.
	Siavash Vaziri MS BME Program. Thesis completed on 8/2005.  “Saccadic remapping of reach targets”.  Results were published in Journal of Neuroscience.  Subsequently a PhD student in the BME program at Johns Hopkins University.
	Ali Ghazizadeh MS BME Program. Thesis completed on 8/2005: “State-space models of online acquisition in motor memory”.  Results were published in papers in PLoS Biology and PLoS Biology.  Subsequently a PhD student in the Neuroscience program at University of California, Berkeley.
	Stephanie Wainscott Thesis completed on 10/2003: “Internal models and contextual cues: encoding serial order and direction of movements”.  Results were published in Journal of Neurophysiology.  Subsequently employed at Directed Technologies, Washington DC.
	Maneesh Dewan Thesis completed on 10/2002. Designed and constructed an MRI compatible robotic arm.  Subsequently enrolled in the Computer Science Ph.D. program at Johns Hopkins. He is now Research Scientist at Siemens Medical Solutions.
	Greg Ariff Thesis completed on 9/2001: “The influence of a forward model of arm dynamics on eye behavior in saccadic tracking of manual reaching tasks”, published in Journal of Neuroscience.  Won the Bozelli Fellowship. Subsequently joined Directed Technologies, Washington DC. Greg is now Senior Project Engineer at Mpr Assoc Inc.
	Tie Wang Thesis completed on July 2000: "Control force changes due to adaptation of forward model in human motor control", Published results in Biological Cybernetics. Subsequently employed at Microstrategy Inc.
	Reza Nezafat MS BME student.  Thesis completed on 10/2000: "Neural correlates of motor memory retention in the cerebellum". Published results in Experimental Brain Research. Subsequently enrolled in the BME PhD program at Johns Hopkins.  Completed the PhD program in 2006.  Subsequently an Assistant Professor at Harvard University School of Medicine. Reza is currently a faculty of the Cardiac MR Center, Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital, Harvard Medical School.
	Nikhil Bhushan Thesis completed on July 1998: "A Computational approach to Adaptive Human Motor Control". Paper ranked among the top 5% of submissions to NIPS 98 conference. Published in Biological Cybernetics and Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems. Subsequently Principal Systems Engineer at Medtronic Corp. Nikhil is now a Senior Produce Manager at Vital Images.
	Kasra Akhavan-Toyserkani Thesis completed on July 1997: “A PET Study of Motor Memory”. Designed and built the robot's digital tachometer. Subsequently employed at Hughes Aircraft Corp.
	Alumni: Undergraduate Students
	Ting-Yu Shih Undergraduate researcher 2009-10. BS in BME from Johns Hopkins. Ting made significant contributions to many projects, including temporal discounting of reward.
	Danny Spampinato Visiting undergraduate student from University of California, Irvine.  Danny worked on building a system to quantify motor costs in patients with Parkinson’s disease. Danny subsequently enrolled in the BME PhD program at Hopkins.
	Mehdi Rahman BS BME program.  Mehdi worked on a portable robot for testing of motor control and learning in patients with deep brain stimulation.
	Jonathan Weisz BS BME program. Robot control design for bimanual control.  Undergraduate degree from Johns Hopkins University.  Subsequently Jon joined the BME PhD program at University of Southern California.
	David Weiss Summer undergraduate student 2005.  Research on muscle spindle models and the representation of limb state in the monkey motor cortex.
	James Hartwell Undergraduate BME student 1999-2001. Jamie was extraordinarily helpful in a large of number of projects in the lab, but his greatest accomplishment was work on the mechanical design of the MRI compatible robot, completed on Jan. 2001. Subsequently enrolled as a medical student in the US Uniformed Services School of Medicine.  Jamie is now a physician.
	Wilsaan Joiner Undergraduate summer research student. Adaptability of the motor feedback control system in individuals at risk for Huntington's Disease. Subsequently enrolled as a PhD student in the BME program at JHU.  After graduation in 2006, Wilsaan became a postdoc in the laboratory of Robert Wurtz at the NIH.
	Joaquin Blaya Undergraduate summer research student. Control theory of motor learning as examined through human adaptation to non-minimum phase dynamical systems. Subsequently MS in Mechanical Engineering at MIT, and then PhD in the Division of Health Science of Technology at MIT. Currently a postdoc at Center for Biomedical Informatics, Boston.
	Bardia Behabadi Undergraduate research student 2002-03. Subsequently a graduate student at the BME department in University of Southern California.