Dr. Justin Sanchez was named Director of BTO in May 2016, after serving as Acting Deputy Director of BTO since December 2015.
Before coming to DARPA, Dr. Sanchez was an Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Neuroscience at the University of Miami, and a faculty member of the Miami Project to Cure Paralysis. He directed the Neuroprosthetics Research Group, where he oversaw development of neural-interface medical treatments and neurotechnology for treating paralysis and stroke, and for deep brain stimulation for movement disorders, Tourette’s syndrome and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.
Dr. Sanchez has developed new methods for signal analysis and processing techniques for studying the unknown aspects of neural coding and functional neurophysiology. His experience covers in vivo electrophysiology for brain-machine interface design in animals and humans where he studied the activity of single neurons, local field potentials and electrocorticogram in the cerebral cortex and from deep brain structures of the motor and limbic system.
He is an elected member of the Administrative Committee of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society.
He has published more than 75 peer-reviewed papers, holds seven patents in neuroprosthetic design and authored a book on the design of brain-machine interfaces. He has served as a reviewer for the NIH Neurotechnology Study Section, DoD’s Spinal Cord Injury Research Program and the Wellcome Trust, and as an associate editor of multiple journals of biomedical engineering and neurophysiology.
Dr. Sanchez holds Doctor of Philosophy and Master of Engineering degrees in Biomedical Engineering, and a Bachelor of Science degree in Engineering Science, all from the University of Florida.
