Elections

Mariana Branco is an Assistant Professor at the University Medical Center Utrecht, in the Netherlands. She completed her BSc and MSc degree in Biomedical Engineering in IST Lisbon and she did a PhD in the clinical translation of implanted BCIs to restore communication in individuals with severe paralysis in Utrecht. In the last 10 years, she has investigated how the brain controls movement and how we can use that information to develop implanted BCIs for children with complex communication needs. Her research focuses primarily on the integration of user’s opinions and preferences in the design of BCIs, and on the feasibility of implanted BCIs for children. She is a founding member of the BCI society, a member of the iBCI-Collaborative Community, and joins regularly the international BCI meetings. As a member of the board her focus and priorities would be to support the ongoing efforts to include end users, in particular children and their parents, in future BCI events, and to support the Society and their members when and where needed.

I hope to join the BCI Society board at this exciting time for BCI development. The proliferation of use cases for BCI technology, paired with increasing interest in commercialization from investors and the public, highlight the bright future of BCI. I hope to help the BCI Society grow its relationships with companies developing BCI while maintaining its core role in fostering a community of academic researchers developing all types of BCI and understanding the ethics of that development.

I lead the efforts at the University of Chicago to develop an iBCI controlled prosthetic hand and arm with sensory feedback. My work has addressed a variety of related topics, including: cortical representation of arm and hand movement, stability of microelectrode array recordings, blending of BCI and robotics control strategies, and the interaction of intracortical microstimulation for sensory restoration with motor control. I have been an active member of the BCI Society for a decade, and a member of the iBCI Collaborative Community since its founding. I partnered with multiple patient advocacy groups to educate people with disabilities about BCI research and foster communication about user priorities.

As a physician, neuroscientist, and entrepreneur, I have dedicated my career to translating cutting-edge BCI research into real-world applications that enhance human lives.

The BCI Society plays a pivotal role in fostering collaboration, advancing research, and shaping the future of our field. My work developing the Stentrode—a first-in-human, fully implanted BCI designed for scalable clinical use—has given me firsthand experience in navigating the complexities of BCI translation, from scientific breakthroughs to regulatory and commercialization pathways.

As a board member, my focus would be on strengthening industry-academic partnerships, accelerating clinical translation, and ensuring BCI technology remains ethical, inclusive, and accessible. I am committed to supporting the society’s mission and driving meaningful progress in the BCI ecosystem. I would be honored to serve and contribute to our shared vision.

I’m honored to be considered for the board of the Brain-Computer Interface Society. As a researcher dedicated to BCI science and clinical translation, I’m eager to contribute my experience and vision to this role.

My work sits at the intersection of engineering, neuroscience, and translation. I am a principal investigator in the BrainGate clinical trial and leader of a laboratory at Emory University and Georgia Tech, where we build intracortical BCIs that restore speech and computer control for people with paralysis. I have pioneered neural modeling approaches, including neural network-based decoding and stabilization methods, and have led efforts to establish open datasets and benchmarks such as the Neural Latents Benchmark and FALCON. Additionally, I have co-led the development of high-performance, open-source BCI infrastructure (BRAND). I also work with industry partners and am currently a research scientist at Meta Reality Labs.

As a board member I aim to 1) further open data, infrastructure, and benchmarking efforts, and 2) strengthen partnerships between academia and industry, ensuring that research leads to real-world impact and creates career opportunities for trainees. I hope that open science and collaboration will help yield broadly available BCIs for people with brain injury and disease.

I am Phoenix Peng, Founder & CEO of NeuroXess (a leading BCI company in China), a PhD Candidate at Fudan University, and Principal Investigator at West China Hospital (Tianfu Jincheng Laboratory). I have been a dedicated member of the BCI Society and its Industry Advisory Committee.

Through NeuroXess’ sponsorships of flagship events like the 2023 BCI Meeting and 2024 SfN social, I’ve actively supported the Society’s mission to unite stakeholders and advance BCI innovation.

If elected to the Board, my priorities will focus on:

1. Closing the Academia-Engineering Gap: Leveraging my academic roles at Fudan University and West China Hospital (Tianfu Jincheng Laboratory), I’ll drive partnerships to translate cutting-edge research into accessible, market-ready solutions.
2. Globalizing Innovation: I’ll champion cross-border partnerships—like shared animal study platforms and joint innovation hubs—to turn geopolitical challenges into opportunities for collaboration and equitable progress.

My commitment is to ensure the Society remains a catalyst for open, inclusive dialogue and action. By fostering translational research, resource-sharing, and trust-building across disciplines and borders, we can empower every voice in our field and accelerate BCI’s transformative potential.

And I humbly ask for your support to bring this vision to life.

I am eager to contribute to the BCI Society Board and help drive its mission forward. As an Associate Professor at the University of Rome Tor Vergata, my research has been deeply focused on BCIs, particularly on standardization, data interoperability, and the release of free analysis tools.
As chair of the IEEE P2731 Working Group, I have led the development of a unified terminology and functional model for BCIs. This initiative fosters clearer communication and collaboration across the field, ensuring that researchers and practitioners can work more effectively. My contributions have been featured in several international journals (Scopus h-index 30).
Looking ahead, I am committed to promoting standardized data formats and software tools that enhance interoperability, accelerate innovation, and improve accessibility. I aim to collaborate with organizations like the International Neuroinformatics Coordinating Facility (INCF) to advance open and FAIR neuroscience practices. Additionally, I plan to engage with the BCI community through workshops and Society communications, fostering a culture of collaboration and knowledge sharing.
I welcome the opportunity to serve on the Board and contribute my expertise to the Society’s growth.

The BCI Society has the incredible opportunity to “foster research leading to technologies that enable people to interact with the world through brain signals” and to promote the responsible and inclusive development and deployment of these technologies while advancing education and outreach. BCI research and industry continue to become more interdisciplinary and require close engagement of other disciplines (ethics, law, sociology, regulatory, and policy). As a Board member my highest priority will be to engage with stakeholders, including student groups, regulatory, industry, medical centers, and other organizations to facilitate communication and collaboration to advance the goals of the BCI Society. To enhance BCI Board activities, I am committed to engaging in member recruitment, strategic planning, committee work, and assist with board activities including the annual meeting, data sharing, boot camps, BCI competitions, and public dissemination.  As a Fellow of the IEEE and the AIMBE for my pioneering contributions to the BCI field, my relevant experience includes chairing international meetings, directing a national center, standards development activities, and service in national advisory board and committees. By electing me a Board member, you can trust in my dedicated and ethical service towards the BCI Society mission and goals.

I am honored to be nominated for the BCI Society Board. As a long-time member of the BCI research community, I have been fortunate to contribute to the field through research, industry translation, and neurotechnology product development, including studies involving participants with lived experience of disability. My work has focused on developing non-invasive BCI technologies for real-world applications, spanning healthcare, rehabilitation, communication, and gaming.

I have been actively involved in the BCI Society since its inception, contributing to organizing scientific meetings, fostering interdisciplinary collaboration, and supporting the growth of the community.

Through roles on advisory boards and committees—such as two terms on the IEEE Brain Technical Community Steering Committee and now its advisory board—I have worked to advance neurotechnology standards, ensure responsible innovation, and support the development of the BCI community.

If elected, I would focus on strengthening connections between researchers, industry, and funding bodies to enhance the development and impact of BCI technologies. I am particularly committed to fostering an inclusive and collaborative research environment and helping the Society expand its global influence. I look forward to the opportunity to serve and contribute to the future of the BCI Society.

As an Assistant Professor in Biomedical Engineering and Pediatrics at the University of Calgary, I direct engineering developments in the BCI4Kids clinical research program at the Alberta Children’s Hospital. I have spent nearly a decade contributing to the BCI field. My primary focus is on how to better create, translate, and deploy BCI systems for children living with complex disabilities, such as quadriplegic cerebral palsy. During my career, I helped establish and grow BCI4Kids, one of the world’s first integrated research and clinical BCI programs for children. I have spearheaded multiple international summits, workshops, and webinars focused on pediatric BCIs, including the first-of-its-kind International Summit on Implantable BCIs for Children with Complex Needs in 2024. I am the director of the BCI Game Jam series which has supported hundreds of game developers from across 5 continents to create over 40 BCI-enabled game experiences. In addition, I am the Scientific Programming Committee Co-Chair for the 2025 International BCI Society Meeting and am the primary organizer of the 2025 User Forum.  If elected, my focus will be to champion and advocate for the inclusion of children and family perspectives into both BCI Society activities and the next generation of BCIs.

I am a Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Virginia Commonwealth University and have had the privilege of serving one term on the board. I am eager to continue contributing to our society’s longstanding traditions of innovation, integrity, collaboration, collegiality, mentorship, and inclusion. I aspire to support the society in navigating these technologically exciting yet politically uncertain times.  I have been active in BCI research and the community for over 20 years and am a founding member of the society.  I have organized sessions and participated in every International BCI Meeting since 2005, including serving as the Scientific Program Co-chair in 2021 and as co-organizer of the inaugural 2024 BCI Society-Chen Institute Meeting in China.  My lab focuses on signal analysis and decoding for invasive and noninvasive BCI applications, including speech neuroprosthetics, visual and auditory attention, memory, closed-loop neuromodulation, and user-state estimation in virtual reality.  We have collaborated and published with many leading BCI researchers around the world.  Our work has been supported by NSF, NIH, DoD, and NIA/NASA and has collectively received over 12,000 citations.  As a dedicated educator, I have mentored more than 100 students and served as a graduate program director for over 10 years.

I am a Research Scientist at the National Center for Adaptive Neurotechnologies (NCAN) in Albany, NY. My laboratory designs, develops, and validates non-invasive BCIs for the assessment of function and the diagnosis of disease. The community supported by the BCI Society is my professional home.

As a BCI Society board member, I would strive to:
(1) Maintain the intimate/interactive environment of the meetings – BCI Society meetings encourage scientists to meet at breakfast in the morning, build mutual respect at events during the day, and solidify friendships over evening conversations. My career has benefited immensely from collaborations initiated at our meetings, and I am committed to maintaining the magic of their design.
(2) Increase the value of BCI society membership – The needs of the BCI community are growing and the society must grow to accommodate them. I support efforts to develop events (e.g., BCI Thursdays) that add year-round value to society membership.
(3) Re-establish a BCI Society journal – Our community needs a voice. I would work to re-establish a journal, overseen by the society, that states our values and offers a vision for the future of the field.

I am an Assistant Professor in Human-Centered Intelligence and Brain-Computer Interfaces at the University of Groningen. My career has been dedicated to advancing neurotechnology, fostering interdisciplinary collaboration, and ensuring that BCIs have a meaningful societal impact. I have been an active member of the BCI Society since 2016.

With over a decade of experience in brain-computer interface research, neural engineering, and artificial intelligence, I have led and contributed to high-impact projects funded by international and national grants, earning recognition such as the Faculty of Science and Engineering Research Award at the University of Groningen. My work spans computational modeling, multimodal sensory systems for robotics and BCIs, and AI-enhanced education, emphasizing both technological innovation and ethical responsibility. 

Beyond research, I am deeply committed to education, outreach, and fostering diversity in science. I have organized public engagement events and participated in initiatives like the Dutch Brain Olympiad and European Researchers’ Night to promote BCI awareness. As a strong advocate for inclusivity, I actively support underrepresented groups through mentorship. 

If elected, I will strengthen interdisciplinary collaborations, expand opportunities for early-career researchers, and promote the ethical development of BCIs. I am committed to bridging academia, industry, and society to advance our field responsibly.