The lab I share with folks from Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and Rehabilitation Medicine officially opened!
This shared space was enabled by a visionary investment from the participating departments, and a Strategic Research Initiative (SRI) award from the College of Engineering has supported community- and capacity-building efforts like this Open House.
Special thanks to outstanding keynote speaker Max Donelan who visited us from Simon Frasier University in British Columbia, the inaugural cohort of AMP Fellows and other denizens of the lab for their excellent demonstrations, Pam Eisenheim and Stephanie Brown from the EE Events team for hosting a fantastic event, and UW Photographer Mark Stone for capturing the evening’s excitement!
Motivation for opening a shared laboratory:
Human interaction with the physical world is increasingly mediated by machines that monitor, learn from, adapt to, and enhance the ability of their human partners. This technological trend will undoubtedly influence a variety of engineering disciplines (e.g. transportation, communication, energy), but we foresee outsized impact in engineering health. We envision a future where: neurophysiological trauma and disease are diagnosed automatically (and, when possible, preemptively); monitoring and intervention are conducted continuously within and outside the clinic; and personalized assistive devices ranging from exoskeletons to co-robots mitigate disability and enhance ability of all individuals, as needed.