Publications

Google Scholar

ResearchGate

Curious optimization

Artificial intelligence (AI) is getting increasingly good at learning, but learning is a distinct concept from being curious. When you learn, you sit back and absorb what's happening. When you're curious, you act in ways to explore your world. We're developing numerically efficient ways to enable curious optimization and AI. Our preliminary results demonstrate that enabling numerically efficient curious optimization results in better, long-term results across a variety of contexts ranging from industrial processes to healthcare and public policy.

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Improving control of prosthetic limbs

People are pretty smart. Prosthesis control signals are noisy. Existing control interfaces don't really take either of these facts into account. Computational motor control is a promising approach to understanding how people control their limbs that can account both for the intelligence of people and the uncertainty of their available control signals. We are applying it to prosthesis control with the hope that if we can accurately model people-in-the-loop for existing control strategies, we can then use our model to evolve better control strategies that harness the intelligence of people and minimize the effect of signal uncertainty on performance.

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Archived: Exoskeleton and lower-limb prosthesis design and control

Design and control of exoskeletons and lower-limb prostheses are challenging in different ways than upper-limb devices: walking can be thought of as the art of continuously falling, so designing human-like control strategies that enable walking and yet gaurantee stability is a challenging goal. We've designed and tested control strategies that achieve this goal, tested them with end-users, and patented several of our strategies and designs.

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Archived: Myoelectric prosthesis design

By spending time understanding the clinical needs of people who choose not to use a prosthesis, and by digging deep into the theory of motor and transmission theory, we developed a small yet powerful prosthetic arm that was tested in field trials. Components were licensed to several commercial companies.

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Archived: Body powered prosthesis design

Body-powered prostheses are lightweight, rugged and have an amazing amount of fine control and natural sensory feedback due to the cables that link them to the shoulder harness. Unfortunately, cables can only pull, so devices have to be spring-loaded: either open or closed. There are pros and cons to both approachs depending on the situation. We explored designs that made it easy to switch between these two modes without having to adjust the slack in the cable, and tested the device in a field trial.

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Current students

Name	Tenure	Research topic
Kristen Culberson	MSc Candidate in Electrical Engineering, 2025-	Curiosity-driven control to facilitate power-imbalanced conversations
Ravindu Upasena	PhD Candidate in Electrical Engineering, 2025-	Computational motor control
Ande Mosher	MSc Candidate in Electrical Engineering, 2024-	Curiosity-driven control in Sex and Gender Based Analysis
Dee Carr	MSc Candidate in Electrical Engineering, 2024-	Technology-enabled mobility assessment
Andrew Doucet	MSc Candidate in Electrical Engineering, 2024-	Automated feedback to debug myoelectric interface problems
Katie Campbell	PhD Candidate in Electrical Engineering, 2023-	Curiosity-driven control in personalized spinal cord rehabilitation
Malin Ramne	PhD Candidate at Chalmers University of Technology, 2023-	Computational modelling of phantom limb pain
Alex Lizotte	PhD Candidate at Western University, 2023-	Control of hybrid FES-exoskeletons

Alumni

Name	Tenure	Institution	Where they went
Ali Estarami	MSc student, 2022-2025	UNB	Project manager, EuroSolar Airsa
Zahed Dastan	PhD student, 2019-2025	UNB	Global Robotic Systems Engineer, McCains
Michelle Sybring	PhD student, 2016-2024	UNB	UNB Assistant Teaching Professor
Anjana Gayathri	MSc student, 2017-2024	UNB
Andrew Mathis	PhD student, 2018-2024	UNB	Entrepreneur and Instructor: Oasis Farmery
Dee Carr	RNB Summer intern, 2023	UNB	UNB
Trevor Hanson	NSERC Summer intern, 2023	UNB	UNB
Jackson McElman	Summer intern, 2023	UNB	UNB
Vince D'Entremont	NSERC Summer intern, 2022	UNB	UNB
Rose He	NSERC Summer intern, 2021	UNB	UNB
Alexandre Banks	NSERC/NBHRF summer Intern, 2021	UNB	UNB
Raul Santiesteban Cos, PhD	MSc student, 2017-2021	UNB	Instructor, Red Deer Polytechnic
Ishtar Al-Tahir	MSc student, 2017-2021	UNB	Clinical Engineer in training, Service New Brunswick
Alexandre Banks	NSERC/NBHRF summer Intern, 2020	UNB	UNB
Kurt Stewart	MSc student, 2017-2020	UNB	Intern at Ekoskeleton startup in BC
Samuel Campbell	MSc student, 2017-2020	UNB	Mechanical engineer in training at Dillon Consulting Ltd
Neil Chambers	MSc student, 2017-2020	UNB	Equipment Services Engineer, LuminUltra
Bailey Hume	Summer Intern, 2019	UNB	McMaster University
Martyn Popitak	Mitacs summer Intern, 2019	UNB	Schevchenko National University of Kyiv
Dan Blustein, PhD	Postdoctoral fellow, 2015-2018	UNB	Assistant Professor, Rhodes College
Ahmed Shehata	PhD student, 2015-2018	UNB	Postdoctoral fellow, U of Alberta
Ricardo Bautista-Quintero	PhD student, 2015-2018	UNB	Postdoctoral fellow, UNB
Nathan Quinn	MSc student, 2015-2018	UNB	Project Engineer, Japan
Katie Wilson	MSc student, 2015-2018	UNB	Project Engineer, UNB
Matthew MacLennan	NSERC summer Intern, 2018	UNB	UNB
Eduardo Alcala Orozco	Mitacs summer Intern, 2018	UNB	MSc student, Tecnologico de Monterrey, Mexico
Mortiz Nipshagen	Mitacs summer Intern, 2017	UNB	Universitat Osnabruck, Germany
Benjamin Tremblay	Summer Intern, 2017	UNB	Master's student, UNB
Samuel Campbell	Summer Intern, 2017	UNB	Master's student, UNB
Kurt Stewart	Summer Intern, 2017	UNB	Master's student, UNB
Matthew Sampson	Summer Intern, 2017	UNB	UNB
Satinder Gill, PhD	Postdoctoral fellow, 2016-2017	UNB	UNB
Amin Beirami	PhD student, 2015-2016	UNB
Benjamin Tremblay	Summer Intern, 2016	UNB	UNB
Anjana Gayathri	Summer Intern, 2016	UNB	National Institute of Technology,Tiruchirapalli India
Reva Johnson	PhD student, 2013-2015	Northwestern University	Assistant Professor, Valparaiso University
Rajat Hebbar	MITACS Summer Intern, 2015	UNB	National Institute of Technology Karnataka India
Nathan Quinn	NBHRF Summer Intern, 2015	UNB	Master's student, UNB
Christian Grandmaison	Summer Intern, 2015	UNB	UNB
Adam Sterner	NSERC Summer Intern, 2015	UNB	UNB
Heather Daley	PhD student, 2014-2015	UNB	UNB, Research Assistant
Tommaso Lenzi, PhD	Postdoctoral fellow, 2012-2015	RIC	Assistant Professor, University of Utah
Sophie Daigle	Summer Intern, 2014	UNB	UNB
Katie Wilson	Summer Intern, 2014	UNB	UNB
Adrian Aleman	Summer Intern, 2014	UNB	University of Guadalajara
Austin Lawrence	Co-op, 2012-2013	RIC	Master's student, Northwestern
Vy Pham	Master's student, 2012	Northwestern University	Engineer, Baxter Healthcare
Kelsey Berning	Summer Intern, 2012	RIC	Northwestern University
Alex Trazkovich	Master's student, 2011-2012	Northwestern University	Electromechanical Engineer, Cooper Tire
Evren Samur	Post-doc, 2011-2012	RIC	Assistant Professor, Bogazici University
Robert Gregg	Post-doc, 2011-2013	RIC	Assistant Prof., University of Texas, Dallas
John Spanias	Summer Intern, 2011	RIC	Master's student, Northwestern
Sarah Cohick	Summer Intern, 2011-2012	RIC	Medical Resident, Rush Hospital
Joshua Hooks	Summer Intern, 2011	RIC	University of Maryland, Baltimore County
Anthony Duran	Summer Intern, 2011	RIC	Northwestern University
Jessica Treasure-Gleasch	Co-op, 2011	RIC	Kettering University
Reva Van Aartsen	Master's student, 2010-2013	Northwestern University	PhD with me
Lawrence Burkart	Master's student, 2010-2011	Northwestern University	Engineer, Kyocera Corporation
Tim Bettger	Summer Intern, 2009	RIC	Master's student, RWTH Aachen University
Nattaporn Intawachirarat	Master's student, 2008-2012	Mahidol University	Research Scientist, Mahidol Physical Therapy
Wirawat Sirisopha	Master's student, 2008-2012	Mahidol University