Lars Crawford, graduate of the Neurobiology/Computational Neuroscience program’s class of 2014, was recently accepted into the Technology Commercialization Fellowship Program at the University of Washington’s Center for Commercialization for his work on a virtual home rehabilitation system called vHAB. Lars and his teammates have created a kinematic hand sensor and custom EMG sleeve that controls a set of dynamic games that emulate traditional upper extremity therapy tasks. vHAB is designed to keep people motivated in their home rehabilitation while collecting data over time that can help with recovery.

The vHAB concept won the Center for Sensorimotor Neural Engineering’s Tech Sandbox competition last spring. Lars’ team includes bioengineering graduate students Brian Mogen and Tyler Libey. The team has continued to work on the project to push it toward market and help to improve lives. The fellowship is intended to provide personal funding and mentorship to help Lars realize this goal.