Jacques Duysens

Dept. of Biomedical Kinesiology

Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, BELGIUM

"Peripheral and central mechanisms for the control of gait"

Short Bio: Jacques Duysens received his Medical Degree, cum laude in Leuven in 1972 and an M.SC in Psychology, cum laude, in 1973. He obtained an M.SC in Neurology and later a Ph. D. in Physiology (cum laude, in 1976) at the university of Alberta in Canada, working with K.G. Pearson. At the N.I.H. (Bethesda, USA), he received a Fogarty post-doctoral scholarship in 1978 to work with G.E. Loeb. He then moved to KU-Leuven in 1979 to work with G. Orban. In 1992 he obtained a joint appointment as associate professor at the University of Diepenbeek. He became assistant professor in the Biophysics department in Nijmegen (Netherlands) in the period of 1987-2005. Since 1999 he has a joint appointment at the research branch of the St Maartenskliniek in Nijmegen and since then he was appointed full professor (Radboud university). In 2007 he became a full professor in Motor Control in Leuven (Belgium). His research interests involve modulation of reflexes during gait, interlimb coordination during gait, obstacle avoidance and falls in the elderly and in patients, fine motor control in children and BCI for locomotor rehabilitation. He is currently editorial board member on 3 international journals and board member of ISPGR.

Pietro G. Morasso

Neurolab, DIST

University of Genova, ITALY

"Posture control modelling with focus on the coordination of postural stabilization and focal movements of the upper limb"

Short Bio: Pietro Morasso is full professor of at the University of Genova. He received a Master in Electrical Engineering from the University of Genova in 1968. As a post-doctoral fellow in the laboratory of Prof. Emilio Bizzi at the Dept. of Brain and Cognitive Sciences of the Massachussets Institute of Technology (MIT), he was trained in the experimental study of the neurophysiology of sensorimotor systems (eye-head coordination, arm trajectory formation, gestures and handwriting) involving monkeys and humans. Since 1995 he heads a Clinical research laboratory at the Rehabilitation Hospital in Arenzano, which focuses on the clinical application of movement analysis techniques. Since 2007 he heads the Motor Learning and Rehabilitation Lab at the Italian Institute of Technology. His research interests include computational neuroscience, anthropomorphic robotics, neural control of movement, motor learning, and neurorehabilitation.

Karl M. Newell

Department of Kinesiology

The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, USA

"Variability and coordination in posture and locomotion across the life-span"

Short Bio: Karl M. Newell is Professor of Kinesiology and the Marie Underhill Noll Chair in Human Performance at The Pennsylvania State University. Dr. Newell's research interests lie in the area of human movement in general and more specifically in motor learning and control. His research focuses on the coordination, control and skill of normal and abnormal human movement across the lifespan; intellectual disabilities and development and motor skills; and, drug and exercise influences on movement control. One of his major themes of research is motor learning across the life span. The other major theme of his research is the study of variability in human movement and posture with specific reference to developmental issues including the onset of aging and Parkinson's disease.

Yoshi Nakamura

Department of Mechano-Informatics

University of Tokyo, JAPAN

"Modeling and Analysis of Human Behavior from Robotics"

Short Bio: Yoshihiko NAKAMURA received Ph.D. in Precision Engineering from Kyoto University in 1985. He was an assistant professor position at Kyoto University for 1982-1987 and an assistant and later associate professor position at University of California, Santa Barbara before moving to University of Tokyo in 1991. He is currently a professor at Department of Mechano-Informatics. Dr. Nakamura's research stems from kinematics, dynamics, and control. Humanoid robotics, cognitive robotics, neuro musculoskeletal human model, biomedical systems applications, and their computational algorithms and software are the current fields of his research. The publications of Dr. Nakamura and his colleagues have received many awards including King-Sun Fu Memorial Best Transactions Paper Award, IEEE Transaction of Robotics and Automation in 2001 and 2002. He was appointed as a Distinguished Lecture for 2006-2008 of the Robotics and Automation Society of IEEE and received the Most Active Distinguished Lecture Award in 2007. He is the Vice President of IFToMM, and the Chairman of the Japan Council of IFToMM. Dr. Nakamura is a Foreign Member of the Academy of Engineering Science of Serbia and a Fellow of the Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers and the World Academy of Art and Science.