The IFESS Next Gen Initiative: Are you being served?

Dr Andrew Ekelem, Ph.D.

Andrew Ekelem, PhD developed a passion for neuroengineering after a 'crash-course' experience of a traumatic spinal cord injury during college. This first-hand experience of SCI and the following rehabilitation motivated Ekelem's pursuit of coursework in neuroscience and bioengineering at the University of California, Berkeley. Ekelem pursued undergraduate research opportunities at the Reeve Irvine Research Center where he explored retrovirus capability to stimulate axon growth, and then at the Human Engineering Lab (HEL) to explore electromyography control of a lower limb exoskeleton. Oddly Ekelem's spasticity made the exoskeleton ineffective for his own ambulation, but through happenstance he met Brian Andrews, PhD, a prominent FES researcher, who was touring HEL and introduced Ekelem to the concept of functional electrical stimulation (FES). Ekelem was immediately intrigued about artificial muscle stimulation and shortly after hacked a muscle stimulator with a toggle switch to create a neuroprosthesis that resulted in his first steps taken after two years of paraplegia. Hooked, Ekelem wanted to learn more so he attended the best conference, IFESS 2012, where his mind was blown from the latest research on BCI, DBS, implantables, and non-invasive treatments for a range of neural impairments. From there Ekelem contributed to graduate-level research at the Center for Intelligent Mechatronics where the Vanderbilt Exoskeleton prototype was transformed into the Indego exoskeleton product that is now commercially available. Now Ekelem is serving as the Chief Product Officer at Evolution Devices with the mission to evolve movement therapy with cutting-edge affordable technologies that enable anyone, anywhere to receive personalized rehabilitative care. 

Moderators

Dr Ken Yoshida, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Purdue School of Engineering and Technology, Indianapolis, USA

Dr Tamsyn Street, Salisbury NHS foundation Trust, UK