Cleveland FES Center Principal Investigator Abidemi Bolu Ajiboye PhD recently won the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE). The award is the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government on outstanding scientists and engineers early in their careers.
Ajiboye is one of close to 400 recipients of the prestigious PECASE award, including three additional engineering faculty members from Case Western Reserve University. Besides his work as a principal investigator with the Cleveland FES Center, he is also the Robert and Brenda Aiken Professor in Biomedical Engineering with the Case School of Engineering and the Case School of Medicine; as well as a biomedical engineering scientist with the VA Northeast Ohio Healthcare System.
One of the projects linked to Ajiboye’s selection is his work funded by the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs. That award is titled “Restoring Multidimensional Coordinated Reaching and Dexterous Grasping to Persons with Chronic Tetraplegia Through Functional Electrical Stimulation.”
Ajiboye and his team at Case Western Reserve University are working to restore movement and sensation to people with quadriplegia by integrating electrical stimulation of muscles and nerves with a brain-computer interface. This prosthesis could restore grasping and reaching movements, and a sense of touch, for those with chronic quadriplegia.
