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The Robotics And Rehabilitation (RoAR) Lab is focused on developing innovative robots and methods to help humans relearn, restore, or improve functional movements. The lab is housed both in Engineering and Medical campuses of Columbia University. Led by Dr. Sunil Agrawal, the lab works actively with clinical faculty from Columbia University Medical Center and hospitals around New York city. Human studies have targeted elderly subjects and patients with stroke, cerebral palsy, spinal cord injury, Parkinson’s disease, ALS, and others.

About ROAR Lab

Open Positions

The Robotics and Rehabilitation (ROAR) Lab is looking for motivated, hard-working, and curious applicants for a post-doc position. Candidates will bring contemporary scientific approaches and be motivated to contribute intellectually in a dynamic team environment, interacting with others on a variety of projects. These projects could include, but are not limited to, assistive and rehabilitative devices for the neck, lower limbs, pelvis, or VR environments to train or assess upper limb function, dual task effects, and cognitive abilities, or stability and response to perturbations while treadmill walking, overground walking, and in a virtual environment. 

We will be using a combination of lab-built systems as well as gold standard equivalents to tackle research questions. Post-docs will be encouraged to lead independent projects resulting in high impact publications, present at conferences and prepare for long-term careers in academia or industry.

If you are interested in working on exciting problems related to rehabilitation robotics, email Dr. Agrawal at [email protected] with a short description of your past research experiences and a resume/CV.

Research Projects

Perturbation Training

Balance training is aimed at reducing falls risk. Elderly subjects and patients with movement disorders exhibit a high risk for falling compared to their young and healthy peers. Our group has developed novel paradigms where we apply different types of perturbations while subjects are standing or walking on a treadmill. These paradigms have been used to characterize and augment stability in different population groups, including elderly, Parkinson's, Cerebellar ataxia, and others.

    News

    ROAR Lab: 2024 - Year in Perspective

    I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has been a part of ROAR lab. It has been an incredible year for our lab with two PhD graduates - Dr. Xupeng Ai and Dr. Fitsum Petros. Also, Robert Carrera, currently a student in Columbia MD-PhD program, completed his PhD proposal defense.

     

    We are pleased to welcome Dr. Jeonghan Yu to our group in the middle of this year. Dr. Chawin Ophaswongse and Dr. Isirame Omofuma, as current postdocs in the lab, have provided leadership to the "wheelchair robots for active postural support (WRAPS)" and "robotic upright stand trainer (RobUST)" projects, respectively. It was great to have Ilaria Fagioli, from Biorobotics Institute in Pisa, visit our lab as a PhD student, who helped us conduct new experiments with RobUST. Also, Dr. Himanshu Pota, a visiting professor from University of New South Wales in Canberra (Australia), helped to improve control performance of our cable systems as well as to study complex human movements. 

     

    With continued commitment of PhD students Priya Kulkarni, Xincheng Zhao, Jiawei Chen, and Kevin Cho, we are looking forward to new discoveries and innovation in human movements and balance. They continue to lead projects on "traction neck braces", "mobile robotic training for cerebral palsy children",  "virtual reality mazes", and "neck control robots". We continued our work on  funded NIH projects  "Improving trunk control in children with cerebral palsy",  "Improving neck control in children with cerebral palsy", and NY State Department of Health project "Training of subjects with spinal cord injury to stand using robotic trainers".

     

    We are pleased to welcome Darren Biskup and Hana Ro as new PhD students in our group who are currently defining and pursuing new directions of research. It is also a pleasure to have Federico Guerra visit us from University of Bologna who brings new perspectives in our thinking on cable-driven robot designs. I want to thank our MS  and BS student researchers who have helped us explore new directions of research and add richness to our ongoing work.

     

    It was a great recognition of our research when I was invited to give the "2024 IEEE Robotics and Automation Plenary lecture in Yokohama" entitled "Rehabilitation Robotics: Improving Everyday Human Functions" in May this year. This lecture was well received by our international robotics community. 

     

    Personally, I am thankful for the two honors received this year, "IIT Kanpur Distinguished Alumni Award" and "Edwin H. Armstrong Professor" by Columbia University. We hope that 2025 will bring new directions in our research both to excel and impact health in our community with scientific research.

     

    Sunil Agrawal, PhD

    ROAR Lab Director

    Events

    There are no upcoming events.

    The Trunk Support Trainer (TruST) project is recruiting!

    The Trunk Support Trainer (TruST) project is recruiting!

    The WRAPS project is recruiting!

    WRAPS is recruiting!