Past Events

Summary:

On January 12th, 2022, the Boundaries project was honored to welcome Professor Krishna Shenoy to speak to our group about emerging and more distant potential issues in the space of brain-machine interfaces (BMIs).  Progress in this area is generally faster and more impressive than many of us on the project had thought.  Technical advancements will likely allow direct electrical intervention with the brain for elective augmentation purposes perhaps by 2035.  Whether this path is pursued societally, by whom, and for what reasons is something to be determined, and something our project will speak to in the months and years ahead.

Bio:

Krishna V. Shenoy, PhD, is the Hong Seh and Vivian W. M. Lim Professor of Engineering. He is with the Departments of Electrical Engineering (EE) and, by courtesy, of Bioengineering (BioE), Neurobiology and Neurosurgery in the Schools of Engineering (SOE) and Medicine (SOM) at Stanford University. He is also a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Investigator. Prof. Shenoy holds a BS in Electrical and Computer Engineering from UC Irvine (1987-1990), a PhD in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT (1990-1995), was a postdoctoral fellow in Neurobiology at Caltech (1995-2001), and has been on faculty at Stanford since then (Assistant Prof. 2001-2008, Associate Prof. 2008-2012, Full Prof. 2012-2017, HHMI Investigator 2015 to present (and at least 2028), Endowed Chair 2017 to present). Prof. Shenoy directs the Stanford Neural Prosthetic Systems Lab (basic neuroscience and engineering) and co-directs the Stanford Neural Prosthetics Translational Laboratory (clinical trials), which aim to help restore lost motor function to people with paralysis. Honors and awards include a Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career Award in the Biomedical Sciences, a Sloan Fellow, a McKnight Technological Innovations in Neurosciences Award, an NIH EUREKA Award, an NIH Director’s Pioneer Award, the 2010 Stanford University Postdoc Mentoring Award, election as a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) College of Fellows, and the 2018 recipient of the Andrew Carnegie Mind and Brain Prize from Carnegie Mellon University. Prof. Shenoy (1) serves on the Scientific Advisory Boards (SABs) of The University of Washington's Center for Neurotechnology (an NSF Engineering Research Center), MIND-X Inc., Inscopix Inc. and Heal Inc., (2) is also a consultant / advisor for CTRL-Labs and was on the Founding SAB, which was acquired in 2019 by Reality Labs, Meta Platforms (previously Facebook) and (3) is a co-founder and consultant / advisor for Neuralink Corp.