Caden Hamrick, a PhD student in Electrical and Computer Engineering, has been awarded an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship to support his work to “improve noninvasive methods of brain-controlled devices like prosthetics.” Hamrick will gain assistance from this renowned fellowship as he progresses with his research and academic work in collaboration with ECE Associate Professor Jacob George.

Hamrick began his PhD at the University of Utah in 2024, but prior to that, he participated in SPUR (the Summer Program for Undergraduate Research). SPUR is a nationally competitive program providing undergraduate students with a valuable 10-week summer research experience under University of Utah faculty mentorship in various disciplines. Before joining the University of Utah, he was a research assistant at Mercer University in Georgia, working in the Machine Intelligence and Robotics Lab at their College of Engineering. 

At the University of Utah, researchers are advancing brain-controlled prosthetics to help people with neuromuscular impairments by combining robotics and neural engineering. This work uses wearable and implantable interfaces to restore function. Hamrick’s research builds on this, improving noninvasive devices by applying insights from advanced implanted systems to those that don’t require surgery. This could make high-quality assistive devices more accessible. As Hamrick notes, “more people could have access to higher-quality assistive devices without necessarily requiring surgery.”

Caden Hamrick’s research promises to have a broad impact on various patient populations. As he notes, “Many different patient populations can benefit from the outcomes of this research. People suffering from limb loss, stroke, traumatic brain injury, and other populations with motion-related disabilities can all make use of brain-controlled prosthetics, and an improvement to muscle recording and prosthetic control techniques will benefit any member of these patient populations who chooses to use a brain-controlled assistive device.”

As Hamrick’s research progresses, we eagerly anticipate the profound impact his innovations will have on enhancing the lives of individuals with disabilities.

Written by Logan Little