Welcome to this edition of  Perspectives,  the e-newsletter of the Stanford course, Perspectives in Assistive Technology.

What is the course? - Perspectives in Assistive Technology is a Winter Quarter course at Stanford that explores issues surrounding the design, development, and use of assistive technology benefitting people with disabilities and seniors. More information can be found on the course website.

Invitation to attend - You are invited to attend all class lectures. They will be held in Building 530, Classroom 127 on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons at 4:15 to 5:30pm and are free and open to the public.

Next lecture - Thursday, February 2nd at 4:15pm:

Abstract: Dave will provide a history of assistive rehabilitation robots and in particular describe the prior robotics-related work at the VA Palo Alto Rehabilitation R&D Center. Allison will discuss therapy robots and the use of robots to perform brain science. She will describe the evolution of therapy robotics for stroke rehabilitation, as well as her recent work (in collaboration with former student David Grow and Neuroscientist Amy Bastian at Johns Hopkins University and the Kennedy Krieger Institute) on using an exoskeleton robot to analyze and affect the movements of patients with damage to the cerebellum. These presentations include material provided by Machiel Van der Loos at the University of British Columbia.

Allison's Biosketch: Allison M. Okamura received the BS degree from the University of California at Berkeley in 1994, and the MS and PhD degrees from Stanford University in 1996 and 2000, respectively, all in mechanical engineering. She is currently Associate Professor in the mechanical engineering department at Stanford University. She was previously Professor and Vice Chair of mechanical engineering at Johns Hopkins University. She has been an associate editor of the IEEE Transactions on Haptics, an editor of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation Conference Editorial Board, and co-chair of the IEEE Haptics Symposium. Her awards include the 2009 IEEE Technical Committee on Haptics Early Career Award, the 2005 IEEE Robotics and Automation Society Early Academic Career Award, and the 2004 NSF CAREER Award. She is an IEEE Fellow. Her interests include haptics, teleoperation, virtual environments and simulators, medical robotics, neuromechanics and rehabilitation, prosthetics, and engineering education.

Dave's Biosketch: David L. Jaffe holds a BS degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Michigan and a MS degree in Biomedical Engineering from Northwestern University.

Prior to coming to Stanford, he was a Research Biomedical Engineer at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System's Rehabilitation Research and Development Center. At the VA his interests were designing, developing, testing, and bringing to market microcomputer-based devices for veterans with disabilities including communication, mobility, and information systems. He has worked on several VA assistive technology research projects including an innovative wheelchair interface for individuals with quadriplegia, an electro-mechanical fingerspelling hand that serves as a communication device for people who are deaf/blind, a system that explores virtual reality techniques to train individuals with gait deficits to improve their walking, and a project that employs a computer-based simulation to assess and improve the driving ability of individuals after brain injury.

In addition to organizing this course, ENGR110/210 Perspectives in Assistive Technology, he currently contributes to the definition of quarterly course projects in ME218 Smart Product Design, is a project coach in ME113 Mechanical Engineering Design, and mentors students working on assistive technology projects.

Do you have a question or comment? - David L. Jaffe, MS, the course instructor, can be reached by email or at 650/892-4464.