Brok Laschowski is using his interdisciplinary education to integrate robotics, neuroscience, and machine learning. While completing his master’s degree in Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering, Laschowski decided to pursue his passion for computational neuroscience by working with Team Canada Paralympic athletes with neurological disorders.
Working with Paralympians gave Laschowski the opportunity to study human motor control using mathematical models and computer simulations, with support from his supervisor Dr. John McPhee. His master’s research on computational motor control and reverse-engineering the brain led to his work on autonomous robot control for his PhD degree in Systems Design Engineering, again supervised by McPhee.
“I started to learn about robot control and decision-making and where there is room for improvement,” Laschowski says. “Although robotics is promising, we don’t yet see them being widely used in the real-world.”
Laschowski addressed these limitations by developing brain-inspired artificial intelligence (AI) for visual scene recognition. This development allows robots to think and control themselves in natural environments.
“Taking inspiration from neuroscience, the goal of my research is to develop new deep learning models for visual intelligence and autonomous robot control,” says Laschowski, also a member of the Waterloo Artificial Intelligence Institute (Waterloo.ai).
Brokoslaw Laschowski (MASc ’16, PhD ’21)
Alumnus, Faculty of Engineering
> Waterloo Artificial Intelligence Institute