Category: Award

Lab Receives $1.6M NIH R01 for EMG-Controlled Adaptive Sports Technology

The lab has received Notice of Award for a $1.6M R01 grant from the National Institutes of Health supporting EMG-controlled adaptive sports research.

Enormous credit goes to Monika Buczak, who wrote the grant almost entirely on her own. The preliminary data, research scope, and direction all came out of her work on this project over the past several years. Monika has served as the bridge between the lab and Jeff Rosenbluth’s adaptive sports program, and this award will accelerate that collaboration over the next five years.

The grant centers on EMG control of the Tetraski. It also supports expanding EMG control to other adaptive sporting equipment and hitting the milestones needed to prepare the Tetraski for its international debut at the 2034 Paralympic Games.

Thanks to Marta, Rebecca Moore, Jason Wiese, Jeff Rosenbluth, Ross, and the broader TRAILS team at the University of Utah for supporting this grant and the research behind it.

Congratulations, Monika.

Jakob Travis Takes Home Two Awards at the Utah Business Innovation Awards

Jakob Travis won two major awards at the Utah Business Innovation Awards ceremony, presenting as CEO of FrostByte Defense Technologies, a lab spinoff focused on frostbite prevention through autonomous, extreme-low-power heated clothing.

FrostByte took first place in the Consumer Products and Lifestyle category. Jakob also won first place and a $3,000 prize in the Innovation Awards Summit Speed Pitch Competition.

Congratulations, Jakob.

NIH Awards $3.5M Fast-Track STTR for Wrist-Worn Neural Interface

The National Institutes of Health has awarded a $3.5M fast-track STTR grant supporting development of a myoelectric partial hand prosthesis with integrated haptic feedback delivered through transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation at the wrist.

The goal builds directly on the lab’s implanted “Luke Skywalker” neural interface for transradial amputees. This project translates that work into a noninvasive, wrist-worn neural interface for people with partial hand amputations, extending the same bidirectional control and sensation to a much larger patient population.

The award goes to NeuroRobotic Technologies, the lab’s spinoff partner company that commercializes promising technologies coming out of the lab’s research. Non-dilutive funding at this scale effectively skips the friends and family, pre-seed, and seed rounds, positioning the company to launch a commercial product on a path toward either self-sustaining revenue or a strong Series A.

NeuroRobotic Technologies will lead development of the integrated EMG plus TENS wrist wearable. Point Designs will develop the motorized and sensorized partial hand prosthesis under subcontract. The lab holds a subcontract for engineering support and clinical validation.

Congratulations to Marta and to everyone on the wrist EMG and wrist stimulation teams driving partial hand control and feedback forward.

Jewan Chae Receives Fall UROP Fellowship

Congratulations to Jewan Chae on receiving a Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) fellowship for the fall semester. Jewan is working with Marshall Trout to design and validate new decoders for improved proportional myoelectric control of multiple degrees of freedom.

Nice work, Jewan.

Lab Receives NSF CAREER Award

The lab has received official notice of an NSF CAREER Award, a major milestone. Unlike most NSF grants, which provide research support for three years, the CAREER award provides $660,000 total for both research and education over five years.

The significance of the award goes beyond the funding. As described by NSF, the Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program is a Foundation-wide activity offering NSF’s most prestigious awards in support of early-career faculty who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education, and to lead advances in the mission of their department or organization.

This award advances the lab beyond its prior work in invasive neuroprosthetics and into a next-generation noninvasive wrist-worn neural interface. The technology stack under development will serve as a foundation for new assistive and rehabilitative technologies across a range of patient populations. As an initial demonstration, the team is focusing on transcutaneous nerve stimulation (TENS) at the wrist for somatotopic sensory feedback in partial hand amputees.

On the education side, the goal is to integrate this technology into classroom and outreach activities supporting the Utah Neurotechnology Training Program, then use feedback from those activities to enhance the accessibility and impact of the technology.

Thanks to everyone in the lab whose work made this grant possible, with special recognition to Abby Harrison, Troy Tully, Marshall Trout, Abby Citterman, and Kaysen Hansen for the papers that served as preliminary data, and to Marta for crafting the figures.

Congratulations to Dr. Connor Olsen

Congratulations to Connor Olsen, who successfully defended his doctoral dissertation in Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Connor’s research asked what can be decoded from the wrist. Traditional myoelectric control records EMG from the forearm to drive bionic limbs. Connor moved the recording site to the wrist and worked on the two problems standing in the way: how the electrode meets the skin, and how we measure whether a myoelectric system is actually working.

That opened applications well past prosthetics. His grant-funded work at the Neilsen Rehabilitation Hospital lets patients control their room’s lights, blinds, and TV through hand gestures alone. He also led research on wrist EMG for gesture classification in stroke patients, and coauthored the lab’s 2025 Nature Communications paper on AI-controlled bionic hands.

Along the way he mentored a long line of undergraduate researchers, and built an onboarding program to get the next ones started faster.

Congratulations, Dr. Olsen. Well earned.

Jakob Travis Awarded NIOSH Targeted Research Training Fellowship

Jakob Travis has been awarded the Targeted Research Training Fellowship from the Rocky Mountain Center for Occupational and Environmental Health (RMCOEH). This is a prestigious renewable PhD fellowship from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health that covers PhD stipend and tuition.

The lab was also awarded a $20,000 grant from RMCOEH supporting Jakob’s research on FrostByte, an autonomous extreme-low-power frostbite prevention glove. Together, these resources will help translate FrostByte into the market and open doors for new civilian occupational markets.

Congratulations to Jakob and the entire FrostByte team.

Fredi Mino Awarded IEEE RAS BioRobotics Travel Award

Congratulations to Fredi Mino on receiving a $1,500 travel award to the IEEE RAS BioRobotics Conference! This is a highly competitive award given to top students presenting top-tier papers at the conference. Fredi will present his recent paper showing that noninvasive stimulation at the wrist can restore haptic feedback on the hand for individuals with sensory loss due to stroke. Even better, that restored sense of touch provides lasting reductions in spasticity that persist after the stimulation stops. Way to go, Fredi!

NeuroRobotics Lab Teams Win Big at Bench2Bedside

Congratulations to our NeuroRobotics Lab teams for their outstanding performance at last night’s Bench2Bedside competition!

Jakob Travis and Kiley Cole earned the Legacy Grand Prize ($15,000) for Frostbyte, an autonomous extreme-low-power frostbite prevention glove. Troy Tully and Brayden VonHatten took home the Best in Business Prize ($5,000) for Wrist-Stim, a wrist-worn neural interface that delivers haptic feedback to the hands for augmented reality and partial hand amputees.

These wins highlight the innovative, translational work happening in our lab. Congratulations to all four team members!