Meet MERIIT@NYU
S. Farokh Atashzar is an Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, as well as Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at New York University (NYU). He is affiliated with NYU WIRELESS and NYU CUSP. Prior to joining NYU, Atashzar was a senior postdoctoral scientist in the Department of Bioengineering, Imperial College London, UK, sponsored by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canada. From February 2017 to August 2018, he served as a postdoctoral research associate at Canadian Surgical Technologies and Advanced Robotics (CSTAR) center. He is associate editor of IEEE Transactions on Robotics and IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters. In 2021 he was recognized by IEEE RAS as an outstanding AE of RAL. His research is funded by the US National Science Foundation. His many awards include the highly competitive NSERC Post-Doctoral Fellowship (PDF) in 2018. He was ranked among the top “5” applicants in Canada for the 2018 NSERC PDF competition in the Electrical and Computer Engineering sector.
Postdoctoral Researchers
Jacqueline Libby {jkl9982@nyu.edu, LinkedIn}: Jackie is a Postdoctoral Associate in the Center for Urban Science and Progress (CUSP) at NYU. She works on the development of soft robotic exosuits to be used for neuromuscular rehabilitation. She works on the end-to-end development of novel soft actuators – including simulation, fabrication, and machine learning techniques for estimation and feedback. Jackie also works on hand gesture classification from high-density electromyography. Jackie received her M.S. in Mechanical Engineering and her Ph.D. from the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, where she focused on field robotics and robot perception. She strives to combine her background in field robotics, machine learning, and mechanical engineering to build safe, affordable and accessible physical human-machine interfaces for patients in need of therapy.
Current and Incoming Ph.D. Students
Sarmad Mehrdad {sm9167@nyu.edu, LinkedIn, Scholar}: Sarmad is a Ph.D. student at MERIIT LAB, NYU. His research focus is on probabilistic models for data-driven robot learning and control with application to neurorehabilitation. His M.S degree, on the topic of design, simulation, and control of mobile robots for teaching purposes, was granted in 2019 from Clarkson University, Potsdam, NY. His research interests include robotics, robot learning, and AI.
Mahya Beheshti {Mahya.beheshti@nyulangone.org, LinkedIn, Scholar}: Mahya will start her Ph.D. in Fall 2020 at the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department, NYU Tandon School of Engineering, advised by Professor Atashzar. Mahya completed her medical school at the Gulf Medical University of Ajman, UAE. She is a physician-scientist working as a researcher in the VMIL/REACTIV lab at NYU Langone Health. Her current interests lie within the realm of neurorehabilitation, human-machine interface, and specifically EEG-based pattern recognition.
Rory O’ Keeffe {rok223@nyu.edu, Scholar}: Rory will start his Ph.D. in Fall 2020 at the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, NYU Tandon School of Engineering, advised by Professor S. Farokh Atashzar. Rory completed a BEng in Electronic Engineering from University College Dublin, Ireland. He then gained industrial experience before starting his master’s education. He completed his MSc In Biomedical Engineering: Neurotechnology at Imperial College London, UK. He will begin His Ph.D. at MERIIT, focusing on Advanced bio-signal processing, machine learning, and in particular smart wearables modules for predicting health anomalies caused by COVID19. His research will cover topics related to human-machine interfacing and integration.
Qin Hu {qh503@nyu.edu, LinkedIn, Scholar}: Qin will start her Ph.D. in Fall 2020 in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at NYU, advised by Professor S. Farokh Atashzar. Her research will be focused on explainable AI in medical signal processing for human-robot interfacing. Before joining the Ph.D. program, she obtained a Master’s degree in Computer Engineering from NYU Tandon and a Master’s degree in Quantitative Methods and Modeling from City University of New York, Baruch College. Qin is a curious and fast learner who received Facebook and Udacity Secure and Private AI Scholarship and Intel Edge AI Scholarship in support of her research in the medical field.
Xingyuan Zhou{xz3428@nyu.edu, Linkedin, Scholar} will start his Ph.D. in Fall 2021, advised by Prof. Atashzar. His research focuses on Controller Design for Telerehabilitation and Human-in-the-loop Optimization based on biosignal. Before joining NYU, Xingyuan completed an MS in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Illinois at Chicago and worked as a research assistant at Rehebolitation Robotic Lab. His research interests include robotics, human-robot interaction, and AI in robotics.
Narges Shahtori {nm3740@nyu.edu, Linkedin, Scholar} is a Ph.D. student at the MERIIT lab. Her research is focused on the application of network theory for time-delay systems and, in particular, control of complex time-delay networked nonlinear dynamics. Her interest in mathematical modeling of complex networks began during her first-year master’s program, where she developed a patient-centric, stochastic model to replicate infectious disease spreading in a complex network. She also works as a data scientist and data engineer, where she works closely with customers from different industry sectors and develops machine learning pipelines to analyze their large-scale data. Her research interests include control theory, machine learning for large-scale data, and network theory.
Peter Paik {hsp287@nyu.edu}: Peter is a Ph.D. student at NYU Tandon School of Engineering. He completed his BS in Mechanical Engineering in May 2020, Summa Cum Laude, and his MS in Mechatronics and Robotics in 2021. He is currently working on his PhDThesis involving research on a Novel Passivity-based Controller for Telerehabilitation, advised by Professor S. Farokh Atashzar. His research interests include robotic technologies for healthcare, surgery, medicine, and rehabilitation.
Suzanne Oliver { sho8511@nyu.edu, LinkedIn} is a PhD student in the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department at NYU Tandon and a recipient of NYU’s Future Leader Fellowship. She works on Human-Robot Interaction and Surgical and Rehabilitative Robotics. Suzanne received her Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering with a minor in Computer Science from Caltech in 2019. She then gained industry experience working in mechanical and automation engineering before joining NYU and MERIIT Lab in 2022. Her interests include medical robotics, bio-signal processing and rehabilitation technologies.
Ahmadreza Ahmadjou {aa9911@nyu.edu, Linkedin} has recently joined as a PhD student working on the design of distributed control for networked dynamic systems. Before joining NYU Ahmadreza was a master’s student at AmirKabir University of Technology, Iran.
B.Sc. and M.S.c. Students
Gayatri Tyagi {gt2126@nyu.edu, LinkedIn}: Gayatri is pursuing a B.S. in Computer Science and will graduate in May 2024. She is in the GLASS honors program and is pursuing minors in Robotics, Mechanical Engineering, and Mathematics. She is working as an undergraduate research assistant with a research focus on the design, development, and testing of soft robotic actuators.
Alumni
Seyed Yahya Shirazi {sy.shirazi@nyu.edu, Linkedin, Scholar} was a Postdoctoral Associate at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at NYU. Seyed completed his Ph.D. at the University of Central Florida (UCF), where he studied the corticomuscular correlates of mechanical perturbations on young and older adults’ locomotion. At MERIIT lab Dr. Shirazi worked on corticomuscular connectivity during rehabilitation with an emphasis on source-resolved approaches for both brain (high-density EEG) and muscle (high-density EMG) signals
Federico Stancati {fs2432@nyu.edu} was a Master’s Student at MERIIT lab. He completed his B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering at La Sapienza University of Rome in the Summer 2019. At MERIIT Lab he worked on his Master’s Project for the Double M.S. in Mechanical Engineering between La Sapienza and NYU. He focused his work on the development of reliable FEM methods to simulate the behavior of hyperelastic actuators. Applications include healthcare, rehabilitation, and exoskeletons.
Nikan Moghadam {nikan@nyu.edu, LinkedIn} joined MERIIT lab as a visiting researcher in 2022. He has an M.Sc. in Computer Science and Business from the Technical University of Munich, and his research focus was on Human Machine Interaction (HMI) and Medical Research (MR). The deep neural networks he developed at MERIIT lab predict hand movements based on HD-sEMG sensors and enable life-changing robotic prostheses and more seamless controls for augmented reality applications.
Aniket Somwanshi {as14611@nyu.edu} (graduate in 2022) received a Master’s Degree in Mechatronics and Robotics from NYU Tandon School of Engineering in May 2022. He completed his Master’s Thesis at MERIIT Lab. His research was focused on the Design and Manufacturing of Pneumatic Soft Actuators, working towards an exoskeleton for wrist rehabilitation. Before joining NYU, he received a BE in Mechanical Engineering from Savitribai Phule Pune University, India. He currently works as a Robotics Firmware Engineer at Azure Medical Innovations. Aniket’s research interests include exoskeletons, simulation and controls, and surgical robotics.
Aadit Patel {arp9541@nyu.edu} (graduate in 2022) received a Master’s Degree in Mechatronics and Robotics from NYU Tandon School of Engineering in May 2022. He finished his Master’s Thesis at MERIIT Lab. His work at the Lab was focused on the design, fabrication and evaluation of soft pneumatic actuators for an exoskeleton glove used for hand rehabilitation. Before joining NYU, he completed B.Tech in Mechatronics Engineering from Manipal University Jaipur, India. Aadit’s research interests include exoskeletons, soft robotics, computer vision, simulation and controls.
Naigam Bhatt {nhb3823@nyu.edu} (graduate in 2022) received a Master’s Degree in Mechatronics and Robotics from NYU Tandon School of Engineering in May 2022. He completed his Master’s Thesis on soft robotics at MERIIT Lab. His research involved designing, manufacturing, and testing pneumatic soft actuators for the application of a robotic rehabilitation exoglove. Before joining NYU, in 2020 he received a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from A. D. Patel Institute of Technology, New V. V. Nagar, India. Naigam’s research interests include exoskeletons, HMI/BMI, and mobile robots.
Jade Sommers {jms10007@nyu.edu} (graduate in 2021) received a Master’s Degree in Biomedical Engineering in August 2021 at NYU Tandon School of Engineering. Her work at the MERIIT Lab involved developing methods for manufacturing 3D printable soft robotics to be used for exoskeletons and stroke rehabilitation. Before NYU, Jade received a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering with an Emphasis in Bioengineering at San Diego State University.
Michael Lally {mfl340@nyu.edu}: (graduate in 2021) Michael received a Master’s Degree in Computer Science at NYU Tandon School of Engineering. His research focuses on novel methods of biosignal collection and analysis through applied machine learning. Michael completed a BS in Computer Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He has worked on several projects through NASA, including a CubeSat climate science research project at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA, and the communications system for the Xemu space suit at Johnson Space Center in Houston, TX. His areas of interest include software engineering, computer vision, and mixed reality applications.
Haoran Zhou {hz2206@nyu.edu} (graduate in 2021) received a master’s degree in Mechatronics and Robotics from NYU Tandon School of Engineering in May 2021. He did his master’s thesis research in soft robotics. The result of his research is accepted in IROS2021 and published in IEEE RA-L (in which he shares the first authorship). Before joining NYU, Haoran did his undergrad study at Anhui University of Technology (AHUT) and did research on CFD and FEA for an academic year at Purdue University as an exchange student. He is now a drone R&D engineer at Easy Aerial Inc. Haoran’s research interests include Soft Robot control, drone control, and computer vision.
Peter Paik {hsp287@nyu.edu}: He completed his BS in Mechanical Engineering in May 2020, Summa Cum Laude, and his MS in Mechatronics and Robotics in 2021. He is currently working on his PhDThesis involving research on a Novel Passivity-based Controller for Telerehabilitation, advised by Professor S. Farokh Atashzar. His research interests include robotic technologies for healthcare, surgery, medicine, and rehabilitation. He won the best thesis award from the Department of Mechanical Engineering in 2021.
Tianyun Sun: He completed his MS in Electrical Engineering in 2021 from NYU Tandon School of Engineering. He is currently working at Meta. His MSc research interests include deep learning for decoding high-density electromyography signals. He won the best thesis award from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering in 2021. During his work at NYU he published several journal and conference papers, such as papers in IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters. His work was also presented at ICRA and IROS conferences.
Smrithi Thudi {srt381@nyu.edu}: Smrithi (graduated in 2021) was a Master’s student at MERIIT lab focusing on novel algorithms in stabilizing human-robot interaction. She is interested in combining soft robots and intelligent stabilizers to maximize the safety and transparency of physical human-robot interaction systems. She is interested in the application of advanced robotics systems in neurorehabilitation. She received her B.Tech in Mechatronics from Manipal Institute of Technology, Manipal, Karnataka, India. Her research interests include Medical robotics, Haptics, and Human-Robot Interaction.
Anuj Doshi {ad5092@nyu.edu} (graduated in 2021) was a Master of Science student at New York University in the Mechatronics and Robotics program. His primary interest is in Medical and Surgical Robotics, and his Master’s Thesis is on the Design and Implementation of a Wearable Internet of Medical Things COVID19 Biotracker. He achieved his Bachelor’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Mumbai. He is interested in cross-discipline technology as a mechatronics engineer and the development of new technologies in the surgical and rehabilitation robots space. His other interests include Deep Learning, Computer Vision, Embedded Systems, and Sensor Fusion.
Shayan Jahed {sj3112@nyu.edu}: Shayan (graduated in 2021) started his Ms degree in Robotics and mechatronics in Fall 2019 in the mechanical engineering department of NYU Tandon school of engineering. He finished his bachelor’s degree in Mechatronics Engineering Feb. 2019 at Sharif University of Technology (Iran, Tehran). He has skills across both disciplines of mechanics and electronics. His Work at MERIIT was on biosignal processing of neural systems.
Ahmed Altelbani {ama1059@nyu.edu} (graduated in 2021) was an M.Sc. student in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. He pursued his degree with a specialization in Mechatronics and Robotics. Prior to joining NYU, Ahmed graduated from UAE University in Abu Dhabi with a B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering and a Minor in Aerospace Engineering. Ahmad’s research interests include Soft Robotics, Robotic Rehabilitation, and Manufacturing Design and Planning. Alongside his master’s thesis, Ahmed worked on a project related to the automation of testing and sampling for Covid-19 patients. In 2017, Ahmed has a U.S. patent for a smart helmet (US9769638).
Paras Gulati {paras.gulati@nyu.edu} (graduate in 2020) Paras completed his master’s degree in Computer Engineering from NYU Tandon in May 2020, during which he conducted research at the MERIIT lab. His research is primarily focused on developing solutions that can be utilized for the dexterous control of rehabilitative prostheses that have the potential to significantly enhance the intuitiveness and accuracy of human-machine interfaces. He leverages deep learning methods to decode the intended limb motions and to recognize hand gestures using sEMG signals.
Ashish Upadhyay {au628@nyu.edu} (graduate in 2020) Ashish completed his M.Sc. in May 2020 on several projects on the MERIIT lab mainly focused on the design and electronic implementation of wearable technologies and IoT devices. His research interest includes but is not limited to Embedded Systems, Digital Signal Processing, Internet Architectural Protocols, Simulation (Circuit and Multi-physics) & Circuit Design with interest in Optimization Theory. He is currently working as part of the MERIIT response team to COVID19, by designing advanced wearable systems that can track patients’ symptoms remotely.
Silvia Proia {sp5325@nyu.edu}: (graduate in 2020) Silvia completed her master thesis “3D printable bionic hand” in July 202o at MERIIT, NYU Tandon School of Engineering, advised by Professor S. Farokh Atashzar. Silvia completed a BEng in “Logistic System Engineering for the agro-food industry” from the University of Foggia, Polytechnic University of Bari partner (Italy). Then, has a dual degree between the Polytechnic University of Bari and NYU Tandon School of Engineering in “Mechanical Engineering” with a major in “Mechatronics and Robotics”. The main focus of her work is on mechanomyography, an innovative method based on muscle vibrations to control prostheses.
Elena de Meo {edm417@nyu.edu}: (graduate in 2020) Elena completed her Dual Degree program between ‘La Sapienza’ University of Rome and New York Tandon School of Engineering in Mechanical Engineering in July 2020. Before joining MERIIT she had completed her BS degree in Mechanical Engineering at ‘La Sapienza’ University. At MERIIT she worked with Professor S. Farokh Atashzar in Interactive Medical Robotics at MERIIT lab. Her project consisted of the realization of a bionic arm using 3D printable mechanisms. The main focus of her work at MERIIT will be the study of Mechanomyography and the detection of the forces applied by the bionic arm to investigate its consistency.