Education & Experience

Education

 
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University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2010 - 2016

Ph.D., Neuroscience

Dissertation: “Mechanisms for enabling closed-loop upper limb sensorimotor prosthetic control”

Committee: Timothy Bretl (PI), Levi Hargrove, Elizabeth Hsiao-Wecksler, Mark Nelson

 
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University of Illinois College of Medicine, 2011 - 2017

M.D. (Incomplete)

Left after completing M1

 
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University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2010 - 2016

M.S., Electrical & Computer Engineering

Thesis: “Estimation of distal arm joint angles from EMG and shoulder orientation for transhumeral prostheses”

Advisor: Timothy Bretl

 
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Loyola University Chicago, 2007 - 2008

M.S., Computer Science

M.S. Project: “A centralized peer-to-peer network for manipulation of multiple PC-controllable robots”

 
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Loyola University Chicago, 2004 - 2007

B.S., Biology (Magna cum laude), Honors Degree, Magis (Service-Learning) Scholar

Minors: Computer Science, Neuroscience

 

Experience

PSYONIC, 2015 - Present

CEO & Founder

  • Developed and commercialized the Ability Hand, the fastest multiarticulated prosthetic hand on the market and the first to provide sensory feedback

  • Recruited and developed a team of engineers and sales/marketing to bring the Ability Hand to market

  • Filed 4 patents related to prosthetic hand technology

  • Raised over $4MM+ in funding from grants, angel investors, and VCs

 

University of California San Diego, 2022 - Present

Adjunct Assistant Professor, Bioengineering

  • Giving guest lectures

  • Mentoring undergraduate and graduate students

 

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2010 - 2016

Teaching/Research Assistant/Fellow

  • Research Assistant in the Bretl Research Group

  • Taught labs for ECE 470 Introduction to Robotics in Fall 2012

  • National Research Service Award MD/PhD Fellow (NIH F30HD084201)

 

Shirley Ryan Ability Lab (Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago), 2011 - 2013

Research Intern/Fellow, Center for Bionic Medicine

  • Modeling neuroprosthetic reaching strategies for transhumeral amputees

  • Validation of an ankle perturbation robot for standing and walking

  • Experimental testing of Inertial Measurement Units

 

University of Chicago Medical Center, 2008 - 2010

Research Technician/Applications Programmer, Dept. of Radiology

  • Development of new software for Computer-aided diagnosis of breast lesions (cancer) in mammograms (NIH 2R01CA092361-06A2)

    • Development of a Java Desktop Application GUI for ease of use in mammogram markup

    • Bit-Level Image Processing of mammogram pixel data

  • Development of a Java web application for Computer-aided analysis of histopathology images of prostate cancer (NIH 5R21EB006466-02)

 
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Loyola University Chicago, 2008 - 2010

Lecturer, Dept. of Computer Science

  • Teaching undergraduate computer science courses; Development of a new introductory programming course using LEGO Mindstorms robots with Java

  • COMP 111 History of Computing (Fall 2008, Spring 2009)

  • COMP 171 Scripting Languages Practicum (Fall 2008)

  • COMP 170 Introduction to Object-Oriented Programming (Fall 2009, Spring 2010)