Praneeth Namburi
Research Scientist, MIT Institute for Medical Engineering and Science
SENSE.nano 2021
Tuesday, October 26
Session 4: Specimens and biopsies
3:10 PM – 3:25 PM EDT
Abstract
Trained dancers move elegantly as a stable and coordinated whole. Even though most untrained individuals are unable to move like trained dancers, they produce coordinated movements during walking and running. Our goal is to understand which aspects of coordination generalize across locomotion and more specialized human pursuits such as dancing. Motivated by the idea that dancers represent rhythm in their body, we chose to focus on how muscles represent rhythm. In this talk, I will outline our approach to investigating how rhythm is represented in muscles, and how this can be used to better understand stability and coordination in the body.
Biography
Praneeth Namburi is a Research Scientist at the Institute for Medical Engineering and Sciences at MIT working on movement research and education. He received a bachelor’s degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He got his Ph.D. in experimental neuroscience from MIT studying neural circuit mechanisms for dissociating positive and negative associative memories.
Namburi’s current research is focused on the biomechanics of efficient, stable and coordinated movement. He draws inspiration from artists and athletes in specialized movement disciplines such as dancing and fencing to investigate skilled movement.