Meet Our Lab Members

Dr. Jinsook Roh is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Houston, TX. Her research program focuses on understanding the neural mechanisms of motor coordination in healthy and pathological populations (esp. stroke) and translating the resultant scientific findings to develop new therapeutic strategies to improve motor function after neural injuries. She holds her graduate degree in Systems and Computational Neurosciences at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), with undergraduate Physics background.

Before joining UH, she worked as an Assistant Professor in Kinesiology at Temple University. She completed a post-doctoral fellowship at Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago (#1 rehabilitation research hospital for > 25 years in the US) and at Northwestern University. She has implemented research projects to identify and characterize abnormalities in synergistic muscle coordination in stroke survivors and to develop novel rehabilitation methods. Dr. Roh received several research awards and fellowships that include American Heart Association Postdoctoral Fellowship (2010-20120). Dr. Roh has been performing research projects supported by extramural funds, such as National Center for Neuromodulation for Rehabilitation (NC NM4R) Pilot Grant as the PI, American Heart Association Scientist Development Grant as the PI, NIH R01 as a co-I, and one international grant from National Rehabilitation Center in South Korea as the co-PI. She also likes teaching and mentoring students with diverse experiences. When she finds free time, she enjoys cooking Korean food, walking with her husband, and chatting with her friends with diverse backgrounds.

In her life, she found that the source of pure joy for her is to see positive changes in people’s life. That finding motivates her to do her science in human motor rehabilitation engineering.

Gang Seo is a Ph.D. student working for REIGN Lab since September 2018. He pursued both of his undergraduate(BS) and master's (MS) study in Biomedical Engineering at  Purdue University, West Lafayette IN. His interest in human neuroscience led him to join the REIGN Lab where has a clear goal of investigating novel therapeutic approaches for stroke survivors who suffer from impaired neuromotor control.  Outside of the lab, he often spends time playing musical instruments.

Yoon No Hong joined the REIGN lab as a Ph.D. student in June 2019. He did MS in Mechanical engineering at Colorado school of mines and at Sogang University, and BS in mechanical engineering at Sogang University.  Since he studied the musculoskeletal level of human movements during his master's program, he joined the lab to learn more about the neuromuscular level. His research interests are characterizing motor impairment and developing a tool to quantify impairment level after stroke.

Anjan Nagesh Ballekere is a first-year Master’s student in the Biomedical Engineering department at the University of Houston. He is following the Neural, Cognitive, and Rehabilitation engineering track and joined the REIGN lab in Summer 2020. He is interested in how computational data analysis can help further neurorehabilitation. He is currently working on a project to develop computational stroke assessment protocols to account for kinetic data. In his free time, he enjoys reading fiction and learning to cook.

Manuel from Quito, Ecuador, joined the lab in September 2020. Also, he worked as a lab technician in the Department of Kinesiology at Temple University. He did his MSc in Bioengineering at Temple University, Philadelphia, and BS in mechatronics at the Equinox University of Technology, Quito, Ecuador. The following list shows his research interests: 1) Neurorehabilitation, 2) Multivariable analysis methods for processing information, and 3) Neural mechanisms of motor coordination. His hobbies are programming and cooking.

Katherine Pham is a master's student who joined the lab in January 2019. Her research interest is in human biomechanics and neurorehabilitation. She is currently working on a project to analyze muscle synergies in isometric and dynamic reaching tasks in healthy versus stroke survivors. Her hobbies include playing musical instruments and getting boba with friends.

Attiya Hussaini is currently a senior majoring in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Houston, following the Bionanoscience Track. She joined REIGN Lab as an undergraduate research intern in January 2021 and is hoping to learn about data collection in aspects of rehabilitation in stroke patients. After her undergraduate studies, she hopes to pursue optometry school to use her skills to impact lives. In her free time, she enjoys working on calligraphy and trying new foods.

Hy Doan joined the REIGN lab in October 2020. Her research interest includes computational neuroscience and cognitive rehabilitation technologies. She is currently working on analyzing intermuscular coordination patterns of the human upper limb across different reaching conditions. Her hobbies are pilates/yoga, soccer, and cooking with friends and family.

Yader Nicolas Nino has been an undergraduate research intern at Dr. Roh’s REIGN lab since January 2021. He is currently going into his senior year as a BME major at the University of Houston. His research interests are neural and physical rehabilitation. In the REIGN lab, he has helped with data collection and literature research. In his free time, Nicolas enjoys outdoor activities, playing video games, and playing guitar.

Brendan Wong joined the lab in the Summer of 2021. He is currently in his third year pursuing his undergraduate degree in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Houston with an aspiration to go into the medical field. His research interests include further understanding the neural mechanisms of motor coordination but is open to expanding his experience in other fields.   In the lab, he is currently working on developing skills in MATLAB, LabView, and C++.  In his free time, his hobbies include playing badminton and drawing.

Amena Jangda joined the REIGN lab in June 2021 as an undergraduate research intern. Her research interests are neurorehabilitation and instrumentation. She is currently working on building a wrist device that can assess the improvement of force control. In her free time, she likes to read and play volleyball.