Michelle Johnson, PhD, is assistant professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation at the Medical College of Wisconsin, and research assistant professor in biomedical engineering at MarquetteUniversity.She specializes in the design, development, and therapeutic use of novel, affordable, intelligent robotic assistants for rehabilitation. She directs the Rehabilitation Robotic Research and Design Laboratory located at the Clement Zablocki VA, where she focuses on using robotics to understand arm dysfunction and recovery after brain injury.She has a PhD in Mechanical Engineering, with an emphasis in mechatronics, robotics, and design, from StanfordUniversity. She completed a NSF-NATO post-doctoral fellowship at the Advanced Robotics Technology and Systems Laboratory at the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna in Italy.

Silvestro Micera, PhD, received the University degree (Laurea) in Electrical Engineering (Thesis Title: Design and implementation of an automatic system for the identification of upper limb movements in hemiparetic subjects) from the University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy, in 1996 and the Ph.D. degree in Biomedical Engineering (Thesis Title: Fuzzy-logic-based algorithms for neuroprosthesis control) from Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Pisa, in 2000. From 1998 to 2001, he was the Project Manager of the EU GRIP Project (ESPRIT LTR Project 26322, “An integrated system for the neuroelectrIic control of grasp in disabled persons”). During 1999, he was a Visiting Student at the Center for Sensory-Motor Interaction, Aalborg University. Since May 2000, he has been an Assistant Professor of BioRobotics at the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna. In 2007 he was a Visiting Scientist with the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, USA with a Fulbright scholarship.He is now Visiting Scientist with the Institute for Automation at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH). He is also currently involved in several projects on neuro-robotics and rehabilitation engineering. His research interests include the development of bionic systems (interfacing the central and peripheral nervous system with robotic artefacts) and the development of mechatronic and robotic systems for function and assessment restoration in disabled and elderly persons. He is currently the Program Chair of the 6th International Conference of ISG which will be held in Pisa in 2008. He served as Associate Editor and Guest Editor of several biomedical engineering journals. He is currently an Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering and member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Neuroengineering and Rehabilitation. Since 2008 he is also Co-Chair of the Technical Committee on Rehabilitation & Assistive Robotics of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society.

Takanori Shibata, PhD Dr. Takanori Shibata was born in ‘67 and received B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. in Electro-Mechanical Engineering from Nagoya University in ‘89, ‘91, ‘92, respectively. He was a research scientist at Mechanical Engineering Lab., AIST, Ministry of International Trade and Industry from ’93 to ’98. Concurrently, he was a postdoctoral associate at the Artificial Intelligence Lab., MIT from ’95 to ’97. He was a visiting researcher at the Artificial Intelligence Lab., Univ. of Zurich in ’96 and at the Artificial Intelligence Lab., MIT in ’98. He was a senior research scientist at Mechanical Engineering Lab., AIST from ’98 to ‘01. AIST was reorganized in ’01. Dr. Shibata has been a senior research scientist at Intelligent Systems Research Institute, AIST since ’01. Concurrently, he was a research scientist for a project of “interaction and intelligence,” PREST and SORST, JST from 2001 to 2008. He is a member of the IEEE and other scientific and technical societies. His research interests include human-robot interaction, human interactive robot, emotional robot, robot therapy, and humanitarian de-mining. He has published many papers and books. He was certified as the inventor of a seal robot named Paro, the World’s Most Therapeutic Robot, by Guinness World Records in 2002. He has received many awards including the Robot of the Year from Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry in 2006, the outstanding young person (TOYP) of the world from Junior Chamber International in 2004 and the Japanese Prime Minister’s Award in 2003.

William Kearns received his Ph.D. in psychology from the University of South Florida in 1989. He has served on the faculty of the Louis de la Parte Florida Mental Health Institute from 1990 to the present and was recently the director of the ComputerSupportCenter from 1992 to 2003. He joined the Department of Aging and Mental Health in October, 2003 and is an Assistant Professor. His interests include using automation to facilitate improved care for elders with dementia and using technology to improve access to mental health services and education. He is an Associate Editor for the international journal Gerontechnology and is USF's Executive Liaison to the Internet2 Project, a consortium of over 200 Carnegie Research I institutions nationwide charged with developing enhanced network services supporting research and education.