Jeffrey Herron, PhD, is an engineering-focused researcher and assistant professor within the UW Department of Neurological Surgery. He received his PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of Washington and worked within the BioRobotics Lab on adaptive deep brain stimulation techniques to improve treatments for both Essential Tremor and Parkinson’s Disease. After concluding his PhD studies, he worked at Medtronic developing new research tools for enhancing neuromodulation research. In particular, he lead the development of the Summit System’s software API which allows researchers to develop protocol-specific software applications for real-time control of an implanted DBS system capable of both sensing and providing therapeutic stimulation. He returned to UW in January 2019 to work on developing new research tools and systems to explore the applications of bi-directional neural interfaces to enable or improve the treatment of neurological diseases, disorders, and injuries.
Recent news is available on Jeff’s lab webpage: https://sites.uw.edu/jeffherr/
Dr. Herron focuses on translating new concepts and technologies into preliminary human feasibility studies through the application of technical systems integration engineering and an understanding of the medical design controls processes required to create human-use systems. This also includes working extensively with regulatory bodies such as local IRBs and the FDA to receive approval for human-subjects based research through protocol review and investigational device exemption applications.
His particular interests lie within the field of enabling bi-directional neural prosthetics that make use of sensed signals to dynamically modulate stimulation. He is also interested in the application of induced plasticity to further enhance the treatment of neurological disease and injury. The design, testing, and clinical evaluation of devices and systems that enable this research in human studies is the primary technical focus of his work.
Doctor of Philosophy in Electrical Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA
Bachelor of Applied Science in Electrical Engineering, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
jeffherr [at] uw.edu
A full list of publications is available on Google Scholar (https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=5bcKh98AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao)