Director
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Elliott J. Rouse, PhD Dr. Rouse is an Assistant Professor in the Mechanical Engineering Department at the University of Michigan, where he directs the Neurobionics Lab. The vision of his group is to discover the fundamental science that underlies human joint dynamics during locomotion and incorporate these discoveries in a new class of wearable robotic technologies. The Lab uses technical tools from mechanical and biomedical engineering applied to the complex challenges of human augmentation, physical medicine, rehabilitation and neuroscience. Dr. Rouse and his research have been featured at TED, on the Discovery Channel, CNN, National Public Radio, Wired Magazine UK, Business Insider, and Odyssey Magazine. Dr. Rouse is a member of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society and the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, as well as the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. He is a member of the IEEE EMBS Technical Committee on Biorobotics, and is on the Editorial Board of RESNA’s Assistive Technology journal. He is dedicated to effective student mentoring and training, as well as translating his research to the public through entrepreneurship; he holds patents for the design and control of wearable robotic systems. Dr. Rouse received the BS degree in mechanical engineering from The Ohio State University in 2007, and the MS and PhD degrees in biomedical engineering from Northwestern University in 2009 and 2012, respectively. Subsequently, he joined the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a Postdoctoral Fellow, working with the Biomechatronics Group in the MIT Media Lab. Prior to joining the University of Michigan, Dr. Rouse was faculty in the School’s of Medicine and Engineering at Northwestern University, and a Research Scientist at the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab (formerly the RIC). More information can be found on his personal website. |
Postdocs
Doctoral Students
University of Michigan
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Alejandro F. Azocar, MS Mechanical Engineering Alejandro received a bachelor’s degree in Aerospace Engineering from Texas A&M University and a master’s degree in Biomedical Engineering from Northwestern University. As an undergraduate, Alejandro worked in the Land, Air, and Space Robotics (LASR) Lab; Vehicle Systems and Control Lab (VSCL); and the Advanced Mechanical Bipedal Experimental Robotics (AMBER) Lab. In addition to research, Alejandro completed six internships at NASA Johnson Space Center. His current research interests include the design and control of prostheses and exoskeletons, human-machine interaction, and rehabilitation of pathological gait. Alejandro is an NSF Graduate Research Fellow and a GEM Associate Fellow. He is the 2015 recipient of the Sigma Gamma Tau Ammon S. Andes National Award, recognizing him as the top aerospace engineering student in the United States. He also received the 2013 NASA Aeronautics Scholarship. More information can be found on his personal website. |
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Kim Ingraham, BS Mechanical Engineering Kim is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Michigan. She received a B.E. in Biomedical Engineering from Vanderbilt University in 2012. Before starting at Michigan, she worked as a Research Engineer in the Center for Bionic Medicine at the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab. She is an NSF Graduate Research Fellow and is interested in the control, optimization, and biomechanics of bionic prostheses and exoskeletons. |
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Ung Hee (Jordan) Lee, BS Mechanical Engineering
Ung Hee is a Ph.D. student in the Mechanical Engineering Department at the University of Michigan. His research interests include control of robots and robot programming, human & robot perception, and developing prosthetics using brain-machine interfaces. Ung Hee received a B.S. degree in Physics from Korea University in 2015. While he was in Korea, he worked in rehabilitation robotics research at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology. Before joining the Neurobionics Lab, he worked in the Automotive Research Center at the University of Michigan from 2016 to 2017 and interned in Fetch Robotics Inc., as a robotics software engineer during Summer 2017. |
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Yves Nazon II, MS Mechanical Engineering
Yves Nazon II received the BS degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) and the MS degree in Mechanical Engineering from Northwestern University. During his time as an undergraduate student he participated in the Meyerhoff Scholars and the MARC U*STAR trainee programs, became a member of Tau Beta Pi engineering honor society, worked in the Energy Harvesting & Design Optimization Lab under the direction of Dr. Soobum Lee, and did summer research at Purdue University, MIT, and University of Southern California. Yves has been named an NSF Graduate Research Fellow and a GEM University Fellow. He is currently pursuing his PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Michigan and is interested in the control of exoskeletons. |
Northwestern University
Master’s Students
Alumni
Postdocs
Timothy Reissman, 2016 (Assistant Professor, University of Dayton)
Master’s Students
Rachel Harris- Robotics, 2018 (Controls Engineer, Dephy)
Chien-Wen (Wayne) Pan- Robotics, 2018 (PhD Student, Arizona State University)
Alex Wind- BME, 2018 (Medical Student, University of Illinois at Chicago)
Ricki Irwin- Robotics, 2016 (Controls Engineer, HDT Robotics)
Christopher Nesler- BME, 2016 (Research Engineer, UT Dallas)
Jeff Lee- BME, 2016 (Product Development Engineer, Smith & Nephew)
Claire Melvin- ME, 2016 (NPI Manufacturing Engineer, Intuitive Surgical)