Prioritizing Risks and Failures is Critical

Matthew Kerr, PhD candidate at Johns Hopkins University. CREDIT: NSF. View full size image

This ScienceLives article was provided to LiveScience in partnership with the National Science Foundation.

Johns Hopkins University (JHU) researcher Matthew Kerr is interested in understanding how the brain is able to control hands and arms with such dexterity and improving methods of neural signal processing. His long-term goals include helping amputees such as the many young men and women who have lost limbs while serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. “We would like for people to be able to control their prosthetic limbs as naturally as they do their own limbs,” he says.

Kerr is a PhD candidate in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at JHU and researches in the Neuromedical Control Systems Lab of Dr. Sridevi Sarma.  He is a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow and a Raytheon ARCS Foundation Scholar.

Kerr has presented his work both domestically and as far away as Istanbul, Turkey.  In his free time he enjoys married life, hosts a Bible study, and plays squash.

Name: Matthew Kerr
Institution: John Hopkins University
Field of Study: Biomedical Engineering

Editor's Note: The researchers depicted in ScienceLives articles have been supported by the National Science Foundation, the federal agency charged with funding basic research and education across all fields of science and engineering. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. See the ScienceLives archive.