Bio

Chethan Pandarinath is a neuroengineer and neuroscientist. He strives to better understand how brains perform computations and to design brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) that allow people with paralysis to move and communicate again. Dr. Pandarinath is a tenured Associate Professor in Biomedical Engineering and Neurosurgery at Emory University and Georgia Tech, where he directs the Systems Neural Engineering Lab. He and his group have developed several deep learning methods to uncover neural population dynamics such as LFADS/AutoLFADS, NDT, RADICaL, and NoMAD, and have also led several open science initiatives around latent variable modeling and BCIs such as the Neural Latents Benchmark, the FALCON BCI benchmark, and the Computation through Dynamics Toolkit. Since 2022 he has co-directed the Emory site of the BrainGate clinical trial, with a focus on multifunctional brain-computer interfaces to restore speech and movement control.

Dr. Pandarinath received undergraduate degrees in Computer Engineering, Physics, and Science Policy from NC State, followed by a PhD in EE at Cornell in the area of retinal prosthetic devices. His postdoc at Stanford with Jaimie Henderson, Krishna Shenoy, and David Sussillo focused on improving the performance of clinical BCIs, and developing deep learning methods to model neural population dynamics. He is a 2019 Sloan Fellow, 2021 NIH Director’s New Innovator Awardee, and gave a 2024 Gilbreth Lectureship at the National Academy of Engineering. He has also served as a research scientist and consultant in neuromotor interfaces at Meta Reality Labs.

Research Philosophy

As a researcher, the mission of my lab is to produce work that truly advances the fields of neuroengineering and neuroscience, develops novel strategies and devices to treat disorders of the nervous system, expands our knowledge of the brain, and never compromises in quality and scientific integrity. Concurrently, we aim to provide rigorous academic training to scholars who will go on to have impactful careers (in academia, industry, or more broadly).

I expect my lab members to be driven, focused, rigorous, and passionate about their work. My goal as a mentor is to ensure that my trainees are working on projects and developing skills that align with their long-term goals and interests. I will, to the best of my ability, strive to keep roadblocks out of their way so they can focus on producing the highest quality research possible. We aim to maintain an open and collaborative environment where the research team is happy and productive.

Lab Manual

A good introduction to our lab philosophy, culture, and expectations can be found in the Lab Manual. (Note: this is a work in progress.)

Consulting/Disclosures

Dr. Pandarinath has served as a research scientist and consultant at Meta Reality Labs.