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Current lab members
Alumni: Postdoctoral Fellows
Alumni: PhD students
Alumni: MS students
Alumni: undergraduate students
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Current
Lab Members
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Mollie
Marko
mkmarko at jhu dot edu
BME PhD Program. Imitation, autism, and motor control. BS from Rutgers
University.
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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.
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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.
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Sarah
Pekny
sep205 at gmail dot com
BME PhD program. BSEE from Penn
State Univ.
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Michelle
Harran
michelleharran at gmail dot com
Undergraduate researcher. BS in
BME from Johns Hopkins.
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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.
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Pavan
Vaswani
pvaswani at jhmi dot edu
MD/PhD program. BS in Computer
Science, Neurobiology and Biochemistry from University of Washington. Pavan is a Goldwater, Gates, and
Washington Scholar.
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Alumni:
PhD students
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Alumni:
Postdoctoral Fellows
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Alumni:
Masters Students
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Courtney Haswell
MS BME
program. Thesis completed on 5/2009. Motor control in autism.
Results published in Nature
Neuroscience.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Alumni:
Undergraduate Students
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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.
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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.
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Mehdi
Rahman
BS BME
program. Mehdi worked on a portable robot for testing of motor control
and learning in patients with deep brain stimulation.
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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.
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David Weiss
Summer undergraduate student 2005. Research on muscle spindle models
and the representation of limb state in the monkey motor cortex.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Bardia
Behabadi
Undergraduate
research student 2002-03. Subsequently a graduate student at the BME
department in University of Southern California.
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