Illinois-Carle Joint Neural Engineering and Rehabilitation Laboratory (JNERL) is an interdisciplinary research laboratory with research spaces and activities across University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and Carle Foundation Hospital. The laboratory is directed by Dr. Yuan Yang, Associate Professor in University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and Carle Foundation Hospital. Dr. Yang is also adjunct associate professor at Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University. The research in JNERL focuses on neural engineering and biomedical (brain) imaging to develop innovative solutions to advance neurorehabilitation and brain research. The first goal of our research is to understand and quantitatively determine pathological changes in the nervous system that are associated with sensorimotor impairments in neurological disorders. This will address the important clinical needs of precision diagnosis and permit our second goal to develop more targeted therapeutical approaches that combat the symptoms of neurological disorders. Our interdisciplinary research integrates computational neuroscience approaches and human subject experiments, based on multi-modal brain imagining, non-invasive brain stimulation, electrophysiology signals, and robotic devices. Research in JNERL is supported by NIH, NSF and American Heart Association.

We welcome potential collaborators and trainees to reach out to us at yuany@illinois.edu. Our lab is also recruiting human subject participants for our research projects. We are also interested in working with K-12 educators and museums to promote STEM education and foster our next generation scientists and engineers.