Sam Nason-Tomaszewski is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Emory University and Georgia Institute of Technology. In addition to being a member of SNEL, he also works with Dr. Nicholas Au Yong and the BrainGate2 clinical trial to investigate brain-computer interfaces for restoring upper extremity function, computer use, and speech. In particular, he is presently working on brain-computer interfaces that combine multiple simultaneous functions, such as speech and cursor control. He is also a trained Clinical Neurotechnology Research Assistant (CNRA) for conducting research sessions and caring for clinical trial participants.

Sam received his Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Michgan in 2022. His dissertation with Dr. Cindy Chestek focused on developing low-power neural interfaces for restoring dexterous finger function with brain-controlled functional electrical stimulation. He received his master’s degree in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Michigan in 2018, and his bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Florida in 2016 with summa cum laude honors.

Sam’s postdoctoral training is funded by NIH F32HD112173, and his predoctoral training was funded by NIH F31HD098804. He has presented his work at SfN, CoSyNe, ASSFN, and IEEE NER. His dissertation work won the Best Basic Science Poster Presentation Award at ASSFN 2022 and the Towner Prize for Outstanding PhD Research at the University of Michigan in 2021.