Elections

I am Senior Vice President of Brain-Computer Interfaces at Blackrock Neurotech, where I lead strategy and development across implantable BCI technologies spanning research, clinical translation, and commercialization. Over the past 16 years, I have been directly involved in the design, deployment, and clinical use of intracortical recording and stimulation systems, working closely with academic, clinical, and industry partners worldwide.

My involvement with the BCI Society reflects a long-standing commitment to building a rigorous, collaborative, and clinically grounded BCI ecosystem. I have contributed to multi-institutional efforts focused on standards, interoperability, ethics, and data sharing, and I regularly engage with regulators, clinicians, and researchers to help translate emerging BCI capabilities into safe, scalable clinical applications.

If elected to the Board, my priorities would be to support responsible clinical translation of BCIs, strengthen collaboration between industry, academia, and patient communities, and help the Society play a constructive role in shaping standards, policy, and best practices as the field matures. I am particularly interested in ensuring that advances in BCI technology are aligned with real clinical needs, robust evidence generation, and long-term patient benefit.

Robert Gaunt has served on the BCI Society Board for three years and is seeking re-election to continue advancing the society’s mission. As a member of the executive planning committee for the 2025 annual meeting, he shaped the scientific program and led the Young Talent committee with a focus on building a diverse and representative cohort of trainees. He will serve in the same roles for the 2027 meeting and wrote an NIH conference grant to support trainee attendance at the meeting. He has also led efforts on partnerships with other societies, was instrumental in developing a broadly supported working definition for BCIs, and serves on the Strategic Planning committee shaping the society’s future directions. If re-elected, he will continue to prioritize trainee development, strategic partnerships, and ensuring the society reflects the growing breadth and translational ambition of the field.

Robert has worked in implantable BCIs for over 15 years. His group pioneered electrical microstimulation in the human brain to restore touch — now an increasingly important component of BCIs for upper limb function. Current work spans long-term safety evaluation, physiologically grounded algorithms for high-channel stimulation, and deep learning approaches for stimulation and decoding. He actively collaborates with device manufacturers to bring new technologies to first-in-human trials.

I am an Associate Professor in the Department of Neurosurgery at Maastricht University, where my group and I focus on invasive BCIs. Working within a clinical environment, combined with my background in computer science, has enabled me to bridge disciplines and contribute to the integration of diverse perspectives within our inherently multidisciplinary field.

Within the BCI Society, I currently serve as Chair of the Communications Committee. In this role, I have worked to strengthen the Society’s outreach and engagement. If re-elected, I am committed to further enhancing the Society’s visibility and impact across both scientific and public domains.

Dear BCI Society colleagues. My name is Joseph (Joey) O’Doherty and I am seeking your vote to serve you as a board member with the society. I have dedicated my career to the development and translation of BCIs for the restoration of movement, sensation, and independence, both as an academic researcher and, more recently, in industry. I am a founding member of the BCI Society, and have fond memories of attending the BCI meeting ever since it was a small gathering of specialists at Asilomar. I am running for election to the board because the field of BCIs is at a critical juncture: it is maturing from a specialized sub-discipline of neurotechnology into a robust industry that will offer transformative products to help many with unmet medical needs. As a board member, I will bring an industry perspective to the BCI Society and help ensure that both the Society and meeting maintains its relevance as the field broadens. Thank you for your vote!

I am a critical care neurologist and BCI researcher at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston. I am currently the site PI for the BrainGate clinical trial site at Mass General, overseeing recruitment, enrollment, peri-operative planning, and research sessions with multiple iBCI research participants. Additionally, I serve as the site PI for the recently launched, industry-sponsored Connect-One Trial of the Paradromics Connexus BCI system. My lab focuses broadly on optimizing the use of BCIs to restore and maintain communication and autonomy for individuals with neurologic injury or disease; we have produced high-impact research on novel algorithms for BCI-based communication, as well as the most comprehensive safety assessment of implantable BCIs published to date. I am the founding clinical director of the Mass General BCI Clinic, the first dedicated outpatient BCI clinic in the country, and I also co-lead the Clinical Practice working group of the iBCI Collaborative Community, where I work with a diverse team of stakeholders to advance the clinical translation of BCI technology. My goal in working with the BCI Society is to further my career-long efforts to make safe, accessible, BCI-enabled treatment of neurologic symptoms a reality for the broadest possible community.

Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCIs) have fascinated me ever since I was introduced to them during my bachelor’s at the Radboud University Nijmegen (the Netherlands). In addition to the evident societal and clinical relevance of restoring autonomy and social interaction in individuals with limited movement capabilities, BCIs can be a powerful tool to better understand human cognition. With a special interest in movement and consciousness, I exploit my interdisciplinary knowledge of artificial intelligence, neuroscience, biomedical engineering and philosophy to investigate the neural basis of voluntary movement and perceptual experience using BCI techniques. I translate my scientific findings into bidirectional BCIs that can assist or restore the sensory and movement capabilities of people living with paralysis in their upper limbs. To do so, I use implanted microelectrode arrays that both record from and stimulate the brain. Being a member of the BCI Society since 2014, and having attended every meeting since then, I am excited to contribute to this inclusive scientific environment. Having experience in both non-invasive as well as invasive BCI methods, and knowing the scientific world on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, I bring a broad expertise to the BCI Society with a personal focus on user priorities.

I am a Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering & Senior Director of Research, Innovation, and Partnerships at Northeastern University. My BCI research spans over two decades, starting with invasive but primarily advancing noninvasive BCIs, with contributions to assistive communication interfaces (RSVP Keyboard, ShuffleSpeller, BciPy) and human-in-the-loop cyber-physical systems including EEG/EMG-interfaced wheelchairs and prostheses. My contributions through information-theoretic methods advanced key BCI performance indicators, from speed-accuracy tradeoff frontiers to reduced user calibration effort. These solutions have reached users through open-source platforms and industry translations including Intel ACAT and Honeywell’s aircraft flight control demonstration.

As a founding member of the BCI Society, I have been invested in this community since its inception — not only as a researcher but as an organizer, mentor, and collaborator. I co-founded the Consortium for Accessible Multimodal Brain-Body Interfaces (CAMBI), with an explicit focus on user-centric, inclusive BCI development, and have mentored diverse learners from high schoolers to postdoctoral researchers.

As a board member, I would prioritize strengthening translational pathways from BCI research to real-world applications, broadening the Society’s geographic and institutional diversity, and fostering responsible industry partnerships that advance the field without compromising scientific integrity.

I aspire to bring my research credibility and institutional leadership experience to serve this community effectively.

I am Yalda Shahriari, Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Director of the Neural Processing and Control Lab at the University of Rhode Island, where my work focuses on multimodal brain-computer interfaces integrating EEG, fNIRS, and advanced signal processing and machine learning methods. My research aims to develop robust, user-centered BCI systems for diagnostics, neurorehabilitation, assistive technologies, and real-world clinical applications.

For almost 20 years, I have been actively engaged with the BCI community through research collaborations, mentoring students, and contributing to interdisciplinary initiatives that bridge engineering, neuroscience, and clinical practice. My connection particularly to the BCI Society and the international BCI meetings stems from both my scientific work and my commitment to growing an inclusive, collaborative community, dating back to 2013 when I began my PhD studies in the ASPEN Lab under Dr. Dean Krusienski. I am particularly passionate about advancing translational BCIs, promoting multimodal approaches, and supporting early-career researchers and trainees.

If elected, my priorities would include fostering interdisciplinary collaboration, strengthening opportunities for students and early-career investigators, supporting clinical and real-world deployment of BCIs, and promoting diversity and inclusion within the field. I would also advocate for initiatives that encourage open science, shared datasets, and community-driven benchmarks to accelerate innovation and impact.

I am excited about the opportunity to contribute to the continued growth and global reach of the BCI Society.

Dear BCI Society colleagues, 

I am a neuroengineer working on brain–computer interfaces and neuroprosthetics, with a focus on bidirectional interfaces. My work aims to translate advances in neuroscience and engineering into clinically relevant technologies, particularly through sensory feedback and embodiment. I hold a permanent research position at EPFL (Switzerland) and lead the Sensorimotor Neurotechnology Lab at San Raffaele Hospital in Milan.

If elected, I will prioritize strengthening the translational pipeline from the laboratory to the clinic—an approach I have pursued across Switzerland, Brazil, and Italy—while fostering closer collaboration among academia, healthcare, and industry. I am committed to supporting early-career researchers and building an interdisciplinary community. I also propose the creation of regional chapters of the BCI society to enhance local engagement and better align practices and standards in BCI research. I believe ethics must remain central to our field, and I will advocate for clear frameworks around neural data privacy, cognitive liberty, and equitable access to BCI technologies.

Thank you for your votes!

Since my first BCI research position with Jane Huggins (before the days of the BCI Society), I have truly enjoyed working with this community.  Sixteen years, six BCI conferences, one invasive BCI postdoc, and three academic institutions later, I am grateful for the potential opportunity to serve the Society as a Board member. 

In both my personal and professional life, hospitality is important to me.  I was the only individual to free Brendan Allison from his unpaid service as bonfire organizer, and as board member my focus and priority would be in location selection.  I believe that, even with our growth as a society, we can continue to find venues with excellent food and accommodations – ensuring the egalitarian access that has so long been a defining part of our Society brand.  I am willing to think outside the box to get there.  Cruise, anyone?