Our interdisciplinary conference features renowned scientists, engineers and artists from a variety of disciplines, including cancer research, medical technology, modern dance and conceptual art.
Graduate/postdocs: Apply ASAP for a travel fellowship to attend the conference's consortium!
 |
Gipsy Abigail Alvarado Calzada Psychologist Gipsy Abigail is a psychologist with interest in physiolological recordings, including EEG. She works for Intelimed, a Mexican company and will be assisting participants in the BCI hackathon workshop. |
 |
Camille Artur Research Assistant Professor Camille Artur is the managing director of the NSF I/UCRC BRAIN (Building Reliable Advances and Innovations in Neurotechnology) at University of Houston and a Research Assistant Professor with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) at the University of Houston. She received her PhD in Physics from the Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand and was a postdoctoral fellow with the ECE department at University of Houston for two years. Her research focuses on optical (Raman, IR) spectroscopy and hyperspectral imaging, novel optical microscopy techniques for large-scale tissue phenotyping and plasmonics for electrocatalysis. |
 |
Jose M. Azorin Director of the Brain-Machine Interface Systems Lab and Associate Professor of the Systems Engineering and Automation Department at Miguel Hernández University of Elche (Spain); Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE Systems Council José M. Azorín is the Director of the Brain-Machine Interface Systems Lab and Associate Professor of the Systems Engineering and Automation Department at Miguel Hernández University of Elche (Spain). He holds a M.Sc in Computer Science from the University of Alicante (1997, Spain) and a Ph.D. in Robotics (Award for the Best Thesis of the Department) by the UMH (2003, Spain). He has been a visiting researcher in the Department of Bioengineering at Imperial College London (United Kingdom) and at INRIA (National Research Center of Computer Science and Automation) - Sophia Antipolis (France). His current research interests are Brain-Machine Interfaces, Neuro-robotics and Rehabilitation Robotics. Over the last years, his research has been funded by prestigious grants from the European Union and other Spanish government agencies. He has been the PI of more than 10 research projects, and his research has resulted in more than 150 technical papers and 3 patents. Currently, he is a Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE Systems Council. |
 |
Miguel Ferrer Ballester Dr. Ferrer Ballester is with the Instituto Universitario para el Desarrollo Tecnológico e Innovación en Comunicaciones, Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain. His area of expertise is in signal processing and communications theory. |
 |
Giuseppe Boccignone Dipartimento di Informatica Prof. Boccgnone is full professor and director of the the Perceptual computing and Human SEnsing (PHuSe) Lab Director at the Università degli Studi di Milano. His research interests span the fields of computational vision, affective computing, machine learning, epistemology of the artificial. On these topics he has authored more than 100 papers in international refereed journals and conferences. He is a member of the IEEE and GIRPR (Italian chapter of the IAPR), and serves as Associate Editor of the Frontiers in Robotics and AI journal. http://phuselab.di.unimi.it/people.php (lab website) |
 |
Jeremy Burnison Scientific Consultant, Brain Products Jeremy is a Scientific Consultant focused on integration of EEG/fMRI/TMS/tES/fNIRS and other biophysiological measures in the fields of psychology and neuroscience research. Jeremy has a background in Physics and Neuroscience and his research is primarily focused on auditory Brain Computer Interface development around speech and communication replacement. He has six years of engineering background in battery technology fields, which translates in the electrical engineering aspect of many of the neuroscience research technologies used today. |
 |
Teresa Lynn Chapman Associate Professor, Dance Teresa Chapman is an Associate Professor at the University of Houston where she teaches dance technique, aesthetics, and pedagogy. As a performer, she has danced for some of the finest Houston-based choreographers. In the past, she has danced for choreographers and companies in Santa Barbara, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Washington DC, New York City, and Hamburg, Germany. Chapman is also an independent choreographer. She has received multiple internal UH grants and has received external funding from Houston Arts Alliance to support her work. Chapman received her MFA in Dance from California State University, Long Beach. Teresa has collaborated with Prof Contreras-Vidal on 'Your Brain on Dance' and together have done demonstration at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC. http://www.uh.edu/class/theatre-and-dance/about/faculty/chapman/ |
 |
Jose L Contreras-Vidal (Chair) |
 |
Andrew Davis Planning Dean, College of the Arts Andrew Davis is Interim Dean of the College of the Arts and Director of the Moores School of Music at the University of Houston. He previously served eight years as Director of Graduate Studies in the Moores School and one year as Associate Dean of the Honors College. He was appointed to the University of Houston faculty in 2003. A music theorist by training, he has written and lectured widely on instrumental music of the Romantic period, and on late-19th and early-20th-century opera. His first book, Il Trittico, Turandot, and Puccini¹s Late Style, was published in 2010; his second book, Sonata Fragments: Romantic Narrative in Chopin, Schumann, and Brahms, will be published in 2016. He is a strong advocate for an arts and a liberal-arts education, international educational opportunities for students, and strengthening the engagement between the University, its neighborhood, and its city. |
 |
Claudio De Stefano Dr. De Stefano is at the University of Cassino and Southern Latium. His research interests include human motor behavior, evolutionary computing and machine learning for writer identification. |
 |
Moises Diaz Universidad del Atlantico Medio, Spain. Moises Diaz received his M.Tech., M.Sc., and Ph.D. in engineering, and an M.Ed. degree in secondary education from La Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Las Palmas, Spain, in 2010, 2011, 2016, and 2013, respectively. He is currently an Associate Professor at Universidad del Atlantico Medio, Spain. His current research interests include pattern recognition, document analysis, handwriting recognition, biometrics, computer vision, and intelligent transportation systems. |
 |
Andreas Fisher Andreas Fischer received his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Computer Science in 2008 and 2012 from the University of Bern, Switzerland. Afterwards, he conducted post-doctoral research at the Centre for Pattern Recognition and Machine Intelligence (CENPARMI) and the Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal, Canada. He currently works as Assistant Professor at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland and as lecturer at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland. His research interests include historical document analysis, handwriting recognition, keyword spotting, signature verification, hidden Markov models, neural networks, and graph-based pattern recognition. |
 |
Mario Ortiz García Associate Professor, Brain-Machine Interfaces Mario Ortiz was born in Murcia (Spain), in 1978. He received a degree in Industrial Engineering in 2002, and Ph.D. in 2016 from the Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena. Currently, he is Associate Professor at the Mechanical Engineering and Energy Department and member of the Brain-Machine Interface Systems Lab at Miguel Hernández University of Elche (Spain). Mario Ortiz research activities include mathematical transforms applied to electrical signal processing, Neural Network Applications for signal classification, Brain-Machine Interfaces, and Creativity. |
 |
Noe Garrido Born in Mérida México, he is a Pioneer in the field of choral conducting in the state of Quintana Roo. A disciple of prominente choral conductors both in México and abroad, such as Jorge Medina Leal (Mexico), Dr. Craig Jessop (USA) Mike Brewer (UK) Alina Orraca (Cuba) and Dr. Linus Lerner (Brazil) to name a few. Keeping an active Schedule as concertizer, teacher, and Performer he resides in Cancún, where he constituted a non-profit that Works with children and youth in music reaching programs. |
 |
Elena Grassi Research Engineer Elena Grassi received the electronics engineering diploma from Universidad Simón Bolivar, Venezuela, in 1990. She received the M.A. degree in cognitive and neural systems from Boston University, Boston, MA, in 1993, and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from Arizona State University, Tempe, in 1999. |
 |
Norberto Grzywacz Dean of the Graduate of Arts and Sciences, Professor of Physics and Neuroscience, Georgetown University Dr. Norberto Grzywacz is the Dean of the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences at Georgetown University. He is also Professor of Physics and Neuroscience. Previously, Dr. Grzywacz served as the Dwight C. and Hildagarde E. Baum Chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering and the Director of the Neuroscience Graduate Program at the University of Southern California (USC). In addition, he was Professor of Biomedical and Electrical Engineering, and Neuroscience while at USC. He studies the brain’s visual system with multiple experimental and theoretical tools, including electrophysiology, psychophysics, brain imaging, and mathematical and computational modeling. Some of his current research projects include neuroesthetics of art, optimal processing principles for visual function and perception, and encoding a decoding of visual information. |
 |
Juliet L. King Juliet L. King, MA, ATR-BC, LPC is assistant professor and director of the graduate art therapy program at Herron School of Art and Design and adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Neurology at the IU School of Medicine. Ms. King has spent over 15 years as a clinician, administrator and professor of art therapy education. Professor King’s leadership has spearheaded the development of over 30 clinical internship programs in the city of Indianapolis and she has a vested interest in integrative care for veterans and their families. Her current research includes exploring the integration of creativity, art therapy and neuroscience, with a focus on neuroanatomical correlates of the unconscious. Recently she edited and published a textbook: Art Therapy, Trauma and Neuroscience: Theoretical and Practical Perspectives. |
 |
Chuck Layne Professor, Health and Human Performance Dr. Charles Layne is professor of the Department of Health and Human Performance in the College of Education at the University of Houston. His research is concerned with helping astronauts maintain muscle strength and aerobic fitness during long periods in space. Dubbed "Mars in a box" the Novel Musculoskeletal Loading and Sensorimotor Assessment System is being developed through a grant funded by NASA’s Independent Research and Development Center. |
 |
Alex Lechner Alexander Lechner studied technical mathematics and bioinformatics at the Johannes Kepler University in Linz, Austria. His master thesis treats the development of support vector machines. Since 2011 he works in sales for g.tec medical engineering GmbH, based in Austria. The company develops hardware and software for biosignal acquisition and analysis. Alexander Lechner is also part of EU-funded projects. |
 |
Luis A. Leiva Luis A. Leiva is a postdoctoral scholar at Aalto University. Previously he was the CTO of Sciling, a Spanish company specialized in Machine Learning. He also was a postdoctoral fellow at the PRHLT Research Center, Universitat Politecnica de Valencia (UPV,, Spain). He obtained a PhD in Computer Science (CS) in 2012 from the UPV. His research interests lie at the intersection of Human-Computer Interaction and Machine Learning. He has participated in several European projects and has published near 50 papers in top-tier CS venues in the last 5 years. He is a member of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and the Special Interest Group in Computer-Human Interaction (SIGCHI). |
 |
Jorge de Jesús Lozoya-Santos Profesor Investigador / Research Professor He is an electronic engineer (2000, Institute Tecnológico La Laguna, Torreón, Mexico); Master in Automation Engineering Sciences and Doctor in Engineering Sciences with a specialty in Mechatronics and Advanced Materials (2000 and 2013, Tecnológico de Monterrey, Monterrey, Mexico). Dr. Lozoya has experience in the industry and academia. He is currently a Research Professor at the Tecnológico de Monterrey. His main scientific interests with emphasis on applied research are Internet of Vehicles, Automotive Control Systems, and Biometrics for Diagnosis and Control of Automatic Systems. He holds SNI 1 Level in CONACYT, México. |
 |
Angelo Marcelli Angelo Marcelli is Professor of the Dipartimento di Ingegneria dell'Informazione ed Elettrica e Matematica applicata, Universita' degli Studi di Salerno (Italy), where he is the Dean of the School of Engineering. Dr. Marcelli's research focuses on neurocomputational models of motor learning and handwriting analysis in neuromuscular diseases. |
 |
David Mayerich Assistant Professor David Mayerich is an Assistant Professor with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Houston, a CPRIT Scholar in Cancer Research, and a Co-PI for the NSF BRAIN Center in Houston. He received his PhD in Computer Science from Texas A&M University and was a Beckman Postdoctoral Fellow with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His research focuses on new imaging methods for large-scale tissue phenotyping and developing high-performance algorithms to process and analyze terabyte-scale three-dimensional images. |
 |
David Medine Product Manager of Brain Computer Interfaces, Brain Products David Medine was born in Tucson, Arizona in 1982. After studying classical string playing at the Manhattan School of Music, he studied Computer Music at the University of California under the mentorship of Miller Puckette. His PhD thesis is concerned with implementing methods for building networks of dynamical systems with the purpose of modelling physical networks in which the finite time length inherent to the unit digital audio sample creates a theoretical problem in the case of computer synthesis (this is particularly troublesome when delay-free feedback loops exist). While a graduate student he was also the conductor and music director of the UCSD Chamber Orchestra. After completing graduate school, he worked for 2 years as a lab engineer in the Swarz Center for Computational Neuroscience at UCSD. During that time, he developed and maintained several important software and hardware projects in support of the EEG research which takes place there. These include Lab Streaming Layer (a software library for recording and synchronizing multi-modal data streams) and the Audiomaze (an augmented reality maze paradigm that combines motion tracking, spatialized audio, and EEG capture). From 2017 to 2018 David worked as a software developer for Brain Products specializing in real-time signal processing applications. Starting October of 2018, he has served as the Product Manager of Brain Computer Interfaces at Brain Products. He is still an active member of numerous opensource neuroscience software projects including Lab Streaming Layer, OpenViBE, and the Brain Imaging Data Structure. |
 |
Pavle Mijovic Biomedical Engineer, mBrainTrain A versatile fellow who obtained his M.Sc degrees in the fields of Mechanical and Chemical Engineering; and a PhD degree in Production engineering Neuroergonomics. The imagination drives him to believe that nothing is impossible. He is working for mBrainTrain LLC for a few years now continuously workrking on a mission to develop fully mobile, wearable devices for recording and utilizing brain activity. |
 |
Dusan Nedic Marketing Manager, mBrainTrain M.sc in Business systems organization. Focused on attracting in marketing rather than interrupting. Long distance runner. He is working for mBrainTrain LLC for a few years now, dedicated to develop positive impact trough the right communication with the customers worldwide. |
 |
Melissa Noble Assistant Instructional Professor/Head of Dance Recruitment Melissa Noble served as Adjunct Faculty for the MFA in Acting program at University of Washington, and has served as a Guest Instructor at Indiana University (in both the department of Theatre & Drama and the Jacob’s School of Music/Opera). Melissa has been teaching Master Classes in Aerial Improvisation at Juniata College in Huntingdon, PA. She is co-director of her physical theatre company, the Dynamic Presence Project. In addition to her extensive background in Modern, Improvisation and Skinner Releasing and Aerial dance, Melissa has also trained in the actor techniques of Tadashi Suzuki. Aside from her creative work, Melissa is also a Licensed Massage Therapist and certified STOTT PILATES(TM) Instructor/Instructor Trainer and works extensively with movement re-patterning and injury. |
 |
Pranav J. Parikh Assistant Professor The long term goals for my research are to understand the neural mechanisms underlying dexterous manipulation and balance control in healthy, aging, and diseased individuals and develop novel therapeutic strategies to improve motor function in aging and diseased individuals. I have a broad background in neurophysiology, biomechanics, measurement of hand kinetics and kinematics, and application of a wide range of techniques including surface electromyography, transcranial magnetic (TMS) and direct current stimulation (tDCS), and electroencephalography (EEG). |
 |
Antonio Parziale Natural Computation Laboratory, Department of Information and Electrical Engineering and Applied Mathematics, University of Salerno (Italy) Antonio Parziale received his Masters degree in Electronic Engineering in 2009 and his Ph.D. in Information Engineering in 2016, both from the University of Salerno (Italy). He is currently a postdoctoral research fellow at the Natural Computation Laboratory of the University of Salerno. His research interests include: handwriting analysis for the early diagnosis of neurodegenerative diseases, signature and writer verification, computational models of human motor control. |
 |
Rejean Plamondon Dr. Plamondon is Full Professor at the Department of Electrical Engineering, Polytechnique Montréal, Canada. His research focuses on Pattern recognition, Signature verification and handwriting recognition, Human movement modeling, Neuroscience, and Theoretical Physics. |
 |
Gianmarco Ragognetti DIEM University of Salerno Gianmarco Ragognetti got his Master Degree in Electronic Engineering in 2012 and received his PhD in Information Engineering in 2017, in University of Salerno. His research deals with Computational Models of Reinforcement Learning, and methodologies for comparing human learning with artificial RL agents. |
 |
Cristina Rivera-Garza Cristina Rivera-Garza is the award-winning author of six novels, three collections of short stories, five collections of poetry and four non-fiction books. Originally written in Spanish, these works have been translated into multiple languages, including English, French, Italian, Portuguese, and Korean. The recipient of the Roger Caillois Award for Latin American Literature (Paris, 2013); as well as the Anna Seghers (Berlin, 2005), she is the only author who has won the International Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Prize twice, in 2001 for her novel Nadie me verá llorar (translated into English by Andrew Hurley as No One Will See MeCry ) and again in 2009 for her novel La muerte me da. She is Distinguished Professor of Hispanic Studies and Creative Writing at the University of Houston, where she is launching the first PhD in Hispanic Studies with a Concentration in Creative Writing in Spanish nationwide. She has written extensively on the social history of mental illness in early twentieth-century Mexico, and published academic articles in journals and edited volumes in the United States, England, Argentina and Mexico. She received a Doctorate in Humane Letters Honoris Causa from the University of Houston in 2012. |
 |
Dario Robleto Dario Robleto is a conceptual artist based in Houston, Texas. He has had numerous solo exhibitions since 1997, most recently at the Menil Collection, Houston, TX (2014) and the Baltimore Museum of Art (2014). Robleto has been a visiting artist and lecturer at many universities and institutions including Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, and the Hubble Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD. In 2013 he served as the California College of the Arts Viola Frey Distinguished Visiting Professor, Oakland, CA. He has been a research fellow and resident at institutions such as Rice University (2013-14) and the Smithsonian Museum of American History (2011). In 2015 he joined a distinguished team of scientists as the artistic consultant to the “Breakthrough Initiatives”—which, when completed, will be the most comprehensive search ever attempted at finding scientific evidence of life in the Universe. He is currently serving as an Artist-in-Residence in Neuroaesthetics at the University of Houston’s Cullen College of Engineering and at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, CA. He was recently appointed as the 2016 Texas State Artist Laureate. Robleto employs a variety of media in his artworks, creating intricately handcrafted objects that reflect his passionate exploration of music, popular culture, science, war and American history. Dario is currently an Artist-in-Residence in Neuroaesthetics at the Cullen College of Engineering at the University of Houston. |
 |
Mary Ellen Ruff Assistant Professor of Art Therapy Mary Ellen Ruff is a Licensed Professional Counselor (VA and DC), Board Certified Art Therapist, and Approved Clinical Supervisor (ACS) currently working in private practice and as an Assistant Professor of Art Therapy at the George Washington University. She has a Master of Science in Art Therapy from Eastern Virginia Medical School and is currently pursuing her doctorate in Counselor Education and Supervision at Capella University. Her dissertation research is focused on exploring art therapy supervision best practices and what occurs in the intersubjective supervisory space. Mary Ellen is interested in integrating neuroscience in the emotional and cognitive experience of supervision, particularly using creative and art-based techniques, and the neuroscience of relational processes in the supervisory encounter. |
 |
Jessica Kay Ruhle Jessica Kay Ruhle is the Director of Education and Public Programs at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University. She established and directs Reflections: The Nasher Museum’s Alzheimer’s Project. This program provides engaging and interactive museum tours to visitors who live with memory loss and their care partners. Tours are discussion-based and include art-making, as well as live music. In June 2017, Jessica organized and hosted the 2017 Dementia & Museums Symposium, an international gathering of museum professionals working with visitors with dementia. Jessica is interested in exploring how mobile brain imaging can provide insight into the museum experience of visitors with dementia and how that information can improve education practices. Before arriving at the Nasher Museum, Jessica worked in the museum education at institutions including the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the NC Museum of Art. In 2014, Ruhle was awarded Museum Educator of the Year by the North Carolina Art Education Association. |
 |
Rogelio Soto Robotics Lab, Tecnologico de Monterrey Rogelio Soto received the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering in nonlinear control from the University of Texas, Arlington. He is currently the director for Undergraduate Research program at Tecnologico de Monterrey, Monterrey, Mexico, where he is also a Professor with the Department of Mechatronics, School of Engineering, and a Co-director of the Research Chair in Robotics. His research interests are in the areas of modeling and control of robotic exoskeletons and Prosthesis. Dr. Soto has been a member of the National System of Researchers (SNI) in Mexico since 1993. He has been collaborated with the brain machine interface systems Lab of Dr. Jose Luis Contreras-Vidal for the past seven years with several projects and publications related with the application of Exoskeletons for Rehabilitation and use of EEG signals to analyze people interest in art at the Museum of Monterrey, Mexico. |
 |
Heather R. Spence AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellow, Heather is a marine biologist and musician who uses science and art to harmonize human-environment interactions. Her Passive Acoustic Monitoring research program on the MesoAmerican Reef is featured in the award-winning microdocumentary World of Sound (https://vimeo.com/thestillsagency/worldofsound), and is explored in her composition for viola da gamba trio, Vale la Pena? (Is it worth it?) derived from a technical study commissioned by the Mexican government (https://vdgsa.org/pgs/music_a.html#NEWMUSIC). She composes music inspired by, and inspiring, conservation and performs internationally as a cellist and gambist. (www.HeatherSpence.net). Heather was the 2017 NAKFI fellow at the Djerassi Resident Artists Program and is a 2017-2019 AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellow at the US Department of Energy in the Water Power Technologies Office. |
 |
J.D. Talasek Director of Cultural Programs of the National Academy of Sciences (USA) |
 |
Dave Thompson Assistant Professor Thompson’s research lies at the intersection of electrical and biomedical engineering. Most of his work is measuring neural signals (usually scalp electro-encephalogram or EEG), trying to guess a user’s communicative intent or emotional state. These technologies hold the promise to restore communication to the most severely paralyzed people, as well as add to the body of knowledge about everyone’s decision making processes. Additionally, Thompson works with other non-invasive sensing technologies relevant to health care, including load cells and film sensors for sleep studies. |
 |
Simone Toma Assistant Research Professor, Neural Control Movement Lab, Arizona State University Simone Toma obtained a M.Sc. in Cognitive Neuroscience (2008) and a PhD program in Robotics and Cognitive Sciences (2012). Across the years, he joined multidisciplinary projects investigating multisensory integration, upper limb motor control and haptic perception in simulated environments. At the Neural Control Movement Lab he is currently investigating the motor correlates of active perception as well as exploring new adaptive haptic rendering algorithms based on user performance. |
 |
Ramana Kumar Vinjamuri Harvey N. Davis Distinguished Assistant Professor Ramana Vinjamuri received his undergraduate degree in Electrical Engineering from Kakatiya University (India) in 2002. He received his MS in Electrical Engineering from Villanova University in 2004 specialized in Bioinstrumentation. He received his PhD in Electrical Engineering in 2008 specialized in Dimensionality Reduction in Control and Coordination of Human Hand from the University of Pittsburgh. He worked as a postdoctoral fellow (2008-2012) in the field of Brain Machine Interfaces (BMI) to control prosthesis in the School of Medicine, University of Pittsburgh. He worked as a Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the Johns Hopkins University (2012-2013). He is currently a Harvey N Davis Distinguished Assistant Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Stevens Institute of Technology. He received the NSF CAREER Award in 2019. He also holds a secondary appointment as an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Indian Institute of Technology, Hyderabad, India. |
 |
Geraldina Interiano Wise Performance and Visual Artist Geraldina Interiano Wise discovered art at a young age in her native El Salvador under the tutelage of a protégé of Diego Rivera. A graduate from Rice University in Architecture/Art/Art History, she is now a dedicated artist, in the realm of Abstract Expressionism and Performance Art. Her artist’s voice comes deep from the intellectual patrimony of her Maya ancestry, rooted in the dynamic ethnography and science of Houston and the world. Her overarching themes are coexistence and connectivity. Using house paints the colors of the ancient pigments used by man to express their view since the hand stencils cave paintings at Sulawesi, indigo pigment sourced from ancient seed in El Salvador, applied with household cleaning tools as an ode to her fellow Latino working people, she paints a story of understanding for all mankind. |
 |
Woody Witt Affiliate Artist in Jazz Saxophone, the University of Houston Moores School of Music Dr. Woody Witt has been an increasingly significant musical force during the past decade as a saxophonist, a composer and as an educator. Born and raised in Omaha, Nebraska, Woody started on the clarinet in fourth grade, switching his focus to saxophone the following year. A professional musician from the age of 16, he studied at the University of Houston, earned a Master’s degree in Jazz Studies from the University of North Texas, and a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Houston’s Moores School of Music. He is a full-time instructor at Houston Community College since 2000, is an Affiliate Artist (saxophone, jazz studies) at the University of Houston, and has conducted a countless number of workshops and master classes throughout the United States, France, Romania, Germany and Asia. As a saxophonist, Woody Witt has recorded over 25 CDs as a sideman and led ten CDs of his own (Woody Witt, Square Peg Round Hole, Live at Cezanne’s, A Conversation, Willows, Seasons Ago, First Impression, Pots and Kettles, Absinthe: The Music of Billy Strayhorn and Presence). He has collaborated with such major jazz artists as trumpeters Randy Brecker, Tim Hagans and Jim Rotondi, saxophonists James Moody, David Liebman and Tim Armacost, trombonist Conrad Herwig, pianists Larry Ham, Joe LoCascio and Mark Levine, drummers Louis Hayes, Adam Nussbaum, Billy Hart, and singer Nancy King, has worked with the Houston Symphony and Houston Ballet, and has been featured on major third-stream works that blend together jazz and classical music. The winner of the 2010 Chamber Music America French American Cultural Exchange grant and the 2014 International Jazz Saxophone Competition in Taiwan, Woody is the booker and the artistic director at Houston’s top jazz club, Cezanne. |
 |
George Zouridakis Associate Dean for Research & Graduate Studies, College of Technology, University of Houston; Research Interests: |
 |
Hassan Aleem IPN (Interdisciplinary Program for Neuroscience) Georgetown University "For my undergraduate education, I attended the University of Arizona where I studied Molecular Biology and Physiology. After graduating I worked as an instructor for developmentally disabled adults. I then began my graduate education at Georgetown University studying Neuroscience. My current projects involve topics in neuroaesthetics, particularly the nature of our preferences and how we form them over time. I am also very interested in engineering and AI applications of neuroscience." |
 |
Aaron Colverson Ph.D. Student, University of Florida Aaron Colverson is a PhD student at the University of Florida studying ethnomusicology and neuroscience. His research passion lies at the crossroads of music, biology, and culture, using music as the tool to facilitate communication across these borders. Aaron’s summer research plans are to conduct a scoping review of literature on music and Alzheimer’s disease, due to burgeoning interest between members of the University of Florida and Malcolm Randall VA Medical Center communities. |
 |
Jesus Cruz-Garza Graduate Research Assistant, University of Houston Jesus is a Graduate Research Assistant at the University of Houston. Through his research, Jesus aims to bridge engineering, science, and art, for the deployment of arts as a form of therapy, education, and to explore basic human neuroscience questions. His contributions have produced tools and protocols to analyze human neural patterns in unconstrained artistic reflection / production, and social interactions. He is a recipient of the University of Houston — Houston Methodist Research Institute graduate fellowship in translational research. |
 |
Priscila Cunha Duke University School of Medicine Priscila is a fourth-year medical student at Duke University School of Medicine applying into primary care. She is particularly interested in research about alternative treatments and quality of life improvement. She is currently working on a systematic review on museum-based art interventions for dementia. This project caught her attention as she believes patients should be considered as a whole person, and the arts have the potential to address other aspects of health not always considered. |
 |
Majo Delgadillo Student Artist-in-Residence IUCRC BRAIN Center María José (Majo) Delgadillo, MFA in Writing (UCSD) and Doctoral Student at UH Creative Writing Program is the 2019 Student Artist-in-Residence in Neuroaesthetics at the NSF IUCRC BRAIN Center (http://brain.egr.uh.edu/). |
 |
Saúl Hernández-Vargas Visual Artist and writer Saúl Hernández-Vargas was awarded the Master's degree in visual arts by the University of California, San Diego and is doctoral student in interdisciplinary studies at the University of Houston. Saúl is co-founder of the magazines Yagular and Sur+Ediciones. He has been artist-in-residence at Nagoya University of Arts (Japón), de la Universidad Politécnica de Valencia (España), de la Universidad de Bellas Artes de Nantes (Francia) y de FieldWork (Marfa, Texas). His first book 'Te preparé humo' will be published by UNAM later this year. |
 |
Anaïs Laurent Département de génie biomédical, Polytechnique Montréal, Montréal, Canada under the supervision of: Réjean Plamondon, laboratoire Scribens, Département de génie électrique, Polytechnique Montréal, Montréal, Canada and Mickael Begon, laboratoire de Simulation et de Modélisation du Mouvement, École de kinésiologie et des sciences de l'activité physique, Faculté de médecine, Université de Montréal, Montréal, Canada Anaïs Laurent is a master’s student at Polytechnique Montréal. She has a background in biomedical engineering at Université de Technologie de Compiègne in France. She moved overseas to pursue her studies in the fields she likes the most: health and applied sports science. At the same time, Anaïs is always in action and dedicated to roller speed skating, in which she has been vice World Champion as part of the French National Team. |
 |
Yanjun Lyu Ph.D Student, Media Art and Science Research Assistant and current Ph.D. student at Synthesis Center under Arts, Media + Engineering at Arizona State University. Yanjun is an interactive media designer, artist, and researcher. Her research focused on augmenting and mediating the scope of human perception by creating a poetic and enchanted experience and expression by exploring the multiplicity of available interactive media. Apart from academia, Yanjun enjoys painting with acrylics and sketching in pencil. |
 |
Akshay Sujatha Ravindran University of Houston Akshay Ravindran is a Ph.D. student at the University of Houston who considers Education, Health, and Spirituality to be the three pillars of his research career. Through an understanding of how our body and bio-signals harmonize best, he intends to develop synergies between these domains, to help advance human wellbeing. He currently serves as the Vice-President for the Graduate and Professional Students Association at UH and has served in multiple leadership positions in IEEE in the past |
 |
Shelby Rode Professional Liaison-Society of Manufacturing Engineers Shelby graduated from Arizona State University's Ira A. Fulton College of Engineering with a Bachelor of Science in Aerospace Engineering in 2013 and is currently a graduate student in Mechanical Engineering Technology at the University of Houston. She serves at the Professional Liaison for the Society of Manufacturing Engineers, is a Member of Society of Women Engineers, serves as Veteran Peer Advisor for the College of Technology and is a Member of Student Veterans of America. Shelby's research seeks to understand the mechanics of manufacturing design and products, and then use that understanding to develop more efficient and sustainable products. |
 |
Anna Scius-Bertrand CHArt, Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, PSL "PhD student at the laboratory of Human and Artificial Cognition at Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes in Paris, I am working on layout analysis, column segmentation and keyword spotting on historical documents, especially on ancients Vietnamese manuscripts." |
 |
Stephanie Scott Graduate Student Researcher Stephanie Scott serves a communications analyst for The Brain-Computer Interface Laboratory at Colorado State University, and is a graduate student researcher within the Journalism and Media Communications Department at CSU. Her work involves developing more effective communication strategies related to neuroadaptive technologies and neurosensing systems. |
 |
Steven Shepard Ph.D. candidate, UC Berkeley, Vision Science/Redwood Center for Theoretical Neuroscience "I studied Neuroscience and Electrical Engineering for my bachelors at Stanford University. As an undergraduate, I conducted research primarily in brain imaging, co-publishing several papers on the neural circuits underlying visual attention. During this time, I would also intern at Germany's Fraunhofer Institute for Biomedical Technology to develop biosensors for intraoperative neurophysiological monitoring. Today, I am pursuing my PhD at UC Berkeley, where my research investigates computational models of vision for neuroscience discovery and AI." |
 |
Justin C. Tanner Postdoctoral Researcher, Sensory Motor Research Group Justin received his PhD in Biomedical Engineering from Arizona State University in 2017. Currently, he is a Post-Doctoral Researcher with the Sensory Motor Research Group at Arizona State University. His interests focus primarily on sensory feedback and changing perception through task and body-ownership context, biomimetic stimulation paradigms, and non-invasive neuromodulation. As using sensory feedback is a skill to be developed, Justin is also interested in control of skilled movements and how learning can be accelerated. |
 |
Ryan Thackston M.S. Student in Electrical Engineering Ryan Thackston is a Graduate Student Researcher in the Noninvasive Brain-Machine Interface Lab at the University of Houston. He continues to chase after his passion of studying, learning, and actualizing human movement through brain-machine interfaces. He completed his undergraduate in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Texas in San Antonio. Outside of school, he enjoys training in boxing and mixed martial arts. |
 |
Eric Todd Research Assistant Eric Todd is a visual artist and engineering student interested in the intersections of science and art. He founded {exurb} collective, was a featured artist at Day for Night festival, a guest lecturer and artist-in-residence at the University of Indianapolis, a former editor of Nano-Fiction magazine, ESPN columnist, and has work held in New Mexico’s permanent collection. He received his BFA from the University of Houston in Creative Writing and Theater and is currently pursuing a post-baccalaureate degree in Electrical Engineering and an ongoing collaboration with Dr. Contreras-Vidal’s Noninvasive Brain-Machine Interface Laboratory. |
