Biomedical informatics

Dr. Eliasmith's lab is the Computational Neuroscience Research Group (CNRG). The CNRG is interested in understanding how the brain works and exploiting that understanding to improve AI. Research at the CNRG focusses on perception, action, cognition, navigation, and key theoretical issues from a neural perspective. Much of this research is carried out by building large-scale neural models of various brain areas. The main software tool we use and developed for this purpose is Nengo (nengo.ca). The books Neural Engineering and How to Build a Brain summarize the main theoretical approaches we take. We recently proposed the Legendre Memory Unit (LMU) and Spatial Semantic Pointers (SSPs) based on our understanding of brain function. Both are helping to improve state-of-the-art results in deep learning. 

Lukasz Golab is a Professor in the Department of Management Sciences and is cross-appointed to the Cheriton School of Computer Science. He holds a Canada Research Chair in Data for Good. Before joining Waterloo, he was a Senior Member of Research Staff at AT&T Labs. He has a BSc in Computer Science from the University of Toronto (2001; with High Distinction) and a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Waterloo (2006; with Alumni Gold Medal for top PhD graduate). 

Chrystopher Nehaniv is founder of the Waterloo Algebraic Intelligence & Computation Laboratory (WAICL), and with Prof. Kerstin Dautenhahn, a co-founder of the University of Waterloo's Social and Intelligent Robotics Research Laboratory (SIRRL). Professor Nehaniv is also a member of the Waterloo AI Institute and the steering committee of the Waterloo Institute for Complexity and Innovation (WICI). He serves as Associate Editor for the journals BioSystems, IEEE Transactions on Cognitive and Developmental Systems, Interaction Studies, and Complexity, and previously as Topic Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Advanced Robotic Systems for the topics of AI Robotics and Human-Machine/Robot Interaction, and has served on the IEEE Task Force for Artificial Life and Complex Adaptive Systems since its founding in 2003, as Chair (2012-2018), Vice Chair (2018-), and on the IEEE Cognitive and Developmental Systems Technical Committee (2019-) of the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society. 

Elise Laende served as the Research Manager for the Division of Orthopaedic Surgery at the Nova Scotia Health Authority, in Halifax from 2009-2019, managing a clinical research program, focused primarily on hip and knee replacements. She concurrently completed a PhD Biomedical Engineering at Dalhousie University, using high-resolution imaging techniques to quantify implant fixation in patients. Her current post-doctoral work at Queen’s University and the Kingston Health Sciences Centre is focused on the application of markerless motion capture technology to measure biomechanics in orthopaedic patients.