SyNC Neuromodulation Symposium 2020

Profiles of Speakers, Chairs and Convenors

Alistair McEwan is currently Ainsworth Chair of Technology and Innovation within the Sydney University School of Electrical and Information Engineering, conducting research into bioelectronics, the electrical and optical properties of tissue, and disabilities such as cerebral palsy. His research focuses on using signal processing, electronics and modelling to understand the effects of the impedance of tissue as a biomarker in neurology, cardiology, musculoskeletal tissue and the effect on neuromodulation, and he works closely with clinicians from a number of Sydney hospitals. He is co-founder of the Sydney Neurobionics Collaboration (SyNC). Find out more about Alistair.

Mariska Vansteensel obtained her PhD in the field of Neurophysiology in 2006 at Leiden University Medical Center, the Netherlands. In 2007, she moved to the BCI lab of Nick Ramsey and she is Assistant Professor at UMC Utrecht. Her main research goal is to use the wealth of neuroscientific knowledge directly for the benefit of people with disease or disability. She currently coordinates research on implantable ECoG-based Brain Computer Interfaces (BCIs) and conducts research within the Utrecht NeuroProsthesis project, which aims to implement and validate implantable communication-BCIs for home use. In addition, she is the principal investigator of several projects related to clinical implementation of BCIs and paediatric neuroscience. Find out more about Mariska.

Leigh Hochberg is Professor of Engineering at Brown University and a vascular and critical care neurologist at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), where he also directs the Center for Neurotechnology and Neurorecovery. His research focuses on the translation of neurophysiology and computational neuroscience discoveries into devices to restore function for patients with neurologic disease or injury. As Principal Investigator and lead Clinical Investigator of the BrainGate Neural Interface team, he is focused on developing and testing practical, ground-breaking brain-computer interface devices to restore communication, mobility and independence to people affected by neurologic disease, paralysis, or limb loss. Find out more about Leigh.

Peter Yoo is the Director of Research at the pioneering neurotech company, Synchron Inc., which recently published a first-in-human study demonstrating successful use of the Stentrode™ brain-computer interface (BCI), or neuroprosthesis. Specifically, the study shows the Stentrode’s ability to enable patients with severe paralysis to resume daily tasks, including texting, emailing, shopping and banking online, through direct thought, and without the need for open brain surgery. Peter has studied in the US, Auckland and Australia, receiving his PhD in Neuroscience from University of Melbourne. He has been with Synchron almost 3 years. Find out more about Peter.

David Borton is an Assistant Professor of Engineering at Brown University School of Engineering and the Brown Institute for Brain Science. He is also part of the BrainGate team. David currently focuses on engineering new tools for wireless neural recording and stimulation in order to untangle neuromotor disease states, and more generally to understand how these states are dynamically represented in the brain and spinal cord. Using these tools, he explores how motor processing in the brain evolves during long-term, naturalistic recording. David received his Bachelors degree in Biomedical Engineering from Washington University in St. Louis in 2006, his doctorate in Biomedical Engineering from Brown University in 2012, and performed his post-doctoral training at the Ecole Polytechnique in Lausanne Switzerland (EPFL) under a Marie Curie International Fellowship. Find out more about David.

Hugh McDermott is the Chief Technology Officer of the Bionics Institute and Chief Science Officer of a start-up company, Deep Brain Stimulation Technologies Pty Ltd. He also holds honorary appointments as a Professorial Fellow at The University of Melbourne. Hugh is an inventor on over 25 patent families. Several of his inventions have been successfully implemented in commercial products available worldwide. Hugh has contributed to the design, development, and evaluation of neurostimulation devices, particularly cochlear implants and biomedical signal-processing systems, for over 35 years. In the past 10 years his work has extended into the fields of prosthetic vision and brain stimulation. The latter research aims to treat conditions such as movement disorders, including Parkinson’s disease, by electric stimulation of selected brain targets. Find out more about Hugh.

Simon Paget is a Paediatric Rehabilitation Medicine Physician and the Head of the Cerebral Palsy and Movement Disorders Service at Kids Rehab, the Children's Hospital at Westmead. He is passionate about improving healthcare delivery through clinical innovation and research, and leads a team dedicated to improving outcomes for children with cerebral palsy and their families. Find out more about Simon.

John Parker is the founder and CEO of Saluda Medical. The company is commercialising research from Australia's Information Communications Technology Centre of Excellence (NICTA). John founded the Implant Systems team at NICTA that developed the closed loop feedback technology. He has over 20 years of experience in medical devices, including 13 years at Cochlear Limited, where he served in the role of Chief Technology Officer and Executive Member of the Board of Directors. Find out more about John.

Peter Horsley is the founder of Remarkable, a division of Cerebral Palsy Alliance. Remarkable is a tech accelerator with a mission to harness the power of technological innovation for driving inclusion of people with disability. Pete has more than 10 years’ experience in the not for profit sector in youth, corporate engagement, social impact and innovation, and he is building an ecosystem of innovators and innovative companies working together to solve the toughest problems in disability. Find out more about Peter.

Sascha Callaghan is a health and technology bioethicist and lawyer, and expert communicator on emerging and complex issues in bioethech ethics and regulation. Her research covers a variety of issues in technology, and law and the body, with a particular focus on mental health, human rights, privacy, personhood and choice. She also has a broad interest in technology, future of education and future of work. Sascha joined the University of Sydney Faculty of Law in 2015 and since 2018 she has also been involved in rolling out the University of Sydney’s flagship education strategy - industry partnership projects, facilitating the collaboration of student with a suite of 40 external partners across industry, community and government sectors, to develop solutions to real world problems involving technological disruption; sustainable growth; bio security; and human rights. Find out more about Sascha.

Cameron Stewart is Pro Dean at Sydney Law School, co-Director of the Centre for Health Governance, Law and Ethics (CHGLE) and an associate of the Centre for Values, Ethics and the Law in Medicine, Sydney Medical School (VELIM). He has degrees in economics, law and jurisprudence. He has worked in the Supreme Court of New South Wales and has practiced commercial law at Phillips Fox Lawyers. His previous appointment was at Macquarie Law School, where he spent 10 years, the last of which as Dean. Cameron is also the co-editor of the Ethics and Health Law news service and the Clinical Ethics Resource. Find out more about Cameron.

Allan McCay teaches at the University of Sydney Foundation Program and also at the University of Sydney Law School, where he is an Adjunct Lecturer. He holds a PhD from the University of Sydney Law School and is interested in behavioural genetics, neuroscience, neurotechnology, and the criminal law. He has a particular interest in ethical issues emerging from artificial intelligence. Allan has co-authored two books: Free Will and the Law: New Perspectives, published by Routledge, and Neurointerventions and the Law: Regulating Human Mental Capacity, is published by Oxford University Press. His work can also be found in many journals and media. Find out more about Allan.

Shekeeb Mohammad is a paediatric neurologist at the Children’s hospital at Westmead in Sydney who completed his PhD on early recognition of autoimmune encephalitis in Children. He leads the movement disorder clinic, movement disorder genomic testing and paediatric deep brain stimulation services at the Children’s hospital at Westmead.  During his PhD he won the prestigious Winston Churchill fellowship in 2014 and undertook travel to the UK and USA as part of this. He is the CI in a research grant "PG01217 "Improvement of care delivery and determining best outcome measures in children with dystonic cerebral palsy undergoing DBS" from Cerebral palsy alliance, Australia. He is interested in global health and as part of this has been working with CSF-Global, a non-governmental organisation in Bangladesh since 2016 supported by a career development fellowship from Cerebral Palsy Alliance into developing a low cost model for care of children with epilepsy and cerebral palsy. Find out more about Shekeeb.

Bob MacDonald is Technical Program Manager at Google in California. He has a PhD in Physics from Brown University and has founded a number of successful technology start-ups. He is currently working on project Euphonia to help people with speech disabilities use speech input like “OK google”. The project particularly focuses on people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a disease that can adversely affect a person’s speech. About 25% of people with ALS experiencing slurred speech as their first symptom. For this and other progressive symptoms, being able to interact with automated devices from a distance can be very important. Yet current state-of-the-art ASR models can yield high word error rates (WER) for speakers with only a moderate speech impairment from ALS, effectively barring access to ASR reliant technologies. Bob’s work within Google aims to change this. Find out more about Bob.

Amanda Chung completed her medical degree at the University of New South Wales in 2007, Master of Surgery (MS) at the University of Sydney in 2012, and a Fellowship of the Society of Genitourinary Reconstructive Surgeons (Eastern Virginia Medical School, Norfolk VA, USA) in 2017. She combines her clinical work with research and is currently undertaking a PhD through the University of Sydney. Her research topic is “Detrusor ultrastructural studies in geriatric lower urinary tract dysfunction: correlation of features and development of a standardised protocol”. Dr Amanda Chung joined Sydney Urological Associates in 2018 and operates at a number of Sydney hospitals. Find out more about Amanda.

Danielle Delaney completed her medical training at the University of Sydney and the Northern Clinical School (Royal North Shore Hospital) and her formal Urology training in Victoria. She has since opened a private practice offering services to both adults and children. Danielle has a special interest in functional urology and is passionate about optimising bladder function from birth to death. At Sydney Children’s Hospital, Randwick, she has improved management of continence issues for children and adolescents. She has been involved in two international clinical trials for Overactive Bladder (OAB) in adolescents and neurogenic bladder in children and adolescents. Danielle often works as a proctor instructing urological colleagues on subspecialised procedures such as sacral neuromodulation for urinary incontinence. Find out more about Danielle.

Margaret Schnitzler is a specialist colorectal surgeon and Associate Professor at the University of Sydney. She trained in surgery at Royal North Shore Hospital and obtained further specialist training in colorectal surgery at the Ferguson Clinic in Michigan, USA and the University of Toronto, Canada. She completed her PhD on molecular genetics of colorectal cancer at the University of Sydney Her main clinical interests are in familial colorectal cancer, anorectal conditions, faecal incontinence and pelvic floor disorders. A/Prof Schnitzler has a teaching appointment at the University of Sydney and is Sub-Dean for Surgery and Academic Coordinator for Surgery at the Northern Clinical School, University of Sydney. Find out more about Margaret.

Gerrit Gmel is the Project Leader at Closed Loop Medical. Completing a PhD in 2016 with a crossover project between engineering and neuroscience, Gerrit applied his deep passion for unraveling the mechanisms of action of neuromodulation to a wide range of applications including spinal cord stimulation, sacral nerve stimulation, and deep brain stimulation. He manages the clinical research efforts at Closed Loop Medical, running basic science experiments, first-in-human trials, and larger safety and performance studies. He is interested in all aspects of neuromodulation, from the basic neuroscience to product development to the commercial aspects of bringing new products to market. Find out more about Gerrit.