Ashton Graybiel Spatial Orientation Laboratory

Directors

James R. Lackner

James R. Lackner received his undergraduate and graduate training at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His research interests concern human spatial orientation and movement control in unusual force conditions including weightless, high force and artificial gravity environments. One feature of his work includes the recognition that exposure to non-terrestrial force environments helps reveal the nature of sensory-motor adaptation to the normal force background of earth.

He is a member of the Volen Center for Complex Systems and the Psychology Department at Brandeis, and is the Riklis Professor of Physiology. He has been Director of the Ashton Graybiel Spatial Orientation Laboratory since its founding in 1982.

Paul DiZio

Paul DiZio has worked in the Graybiel Laboratory since its founding in 1982. He received his graduate training there in experimental psychology and has been the associate director since 1986. In 1995, he became a faculty member in the psychology department and the Volen Center for Complex Systems.

Paul's major research interests are human spatial orientation, posture and balance, movement control and coordination, sensory-motor adaptation, motor development, multi-sensory interactions, space perception, space flight physiology, human factors in virtual environments and motion sickness. Experimental approaches to these problems involve unusual force environments, such as space flight and virtual environments, as well as clinical conditions, such as labyrinthine loss, congenital blindness, peripheral neuropathy, autism spectrum disorder, and cerebellar dysfunction. These approaches are important both for illuminating basic neural mechanisms and for achieving solutions to practical problems. Practical applications of interest include development of motor control and posture across the lifespan, disorders of movement in autism, vestibular loss and other clinical conditions, and predicting and circumventing degradation of perception and performance in unusual force environments, developing brain-computer interfaces.

Lab Staff

Avijit Bakshi, Post-Doc

Avijit performs noninvasive measurements of kinematic and dynamical variables of human body. He then analyzes and models the control of human posture. Currently he is experimenting, analyzing and trying to model the phenomenon of step initiation and falling, and their relations to the observed lateral postural asymmetries.

Avijit's interests in biological application of physics attracted him to the Graybiel Lab. He received his bachelor's degree and Master of Science (Physics) from the University of Calcutta, India, and his Ph.D. from the Department of Physics at Brandeis University.

Julia Derk, Research Assistant

Julia hails from Greeley, Colorado and is currently conducting her Senior Honor Thesis in the lab until she graduates from Brandeis in May with a B.S. in Neuroscience and Psychology. She is the co-founder of Neuroscience Club on campus and her research is on the developmental pattern of self-generated Coriolis force in children during turn-and-reach movements with future implications for Autism occupational therapy techniques. Her previous research focused on eye-gaze modulation as a form of emotion regulation in the Isaacowitz Emotion Lab as well as smooth-pursuit eye movement perturbations in males with Schizophrenia at the Nathan Kline Institute for Mental Health.

In addition to research she has enjoyed great success on the Brandeis Swimming Team, University of Edinburgh National Champion Frisbee team (while studying abroad), and spends as much time as possible enjoying nature and the outdoors.

Janna Kaplan, Senior Research Associate and Lecturer

Janna Kaplan, M.S. is Lecturer in Psychology and Senior Research Associate at Brandeis University’s Graybiel Lab, specializing in Neuropsychology and Space Research. At Brandeis since 1983, she studies human adaptation to various conditions of space flight such as zero-G, high-G, artificial gravity environments, spatial orientation, and space motion sickness.

Within the Graybiel Lab and on the foundation of its research and experience, Janna has developed a program for commercial and private payload and research astronaut training of which she is now Program Lead and Senior Scientist. The training protocol focuses on sensorimotor human factors of flight such as space motion sickness, spatial disorientation, spatial illusions, and movement errors in changing gravitoinertial force environments.

Janna serves on Faculty Advisory Councils of the Brandeis-Genesis Institute for Russian Jewry, and of the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute for the Study of Jewish Women. She frequently lectures at schools and to various groups about the science of space exploration. Of special interest to her is the role of STEM curriculum (science, technology, engineering, math) in empowerment and intellectual development of adolescent girls.

Janna’s undergraduate and graduate degrees are from the University of Leningrad (now St. Petersburg). Janna came to the US as a Jewish refugee from Russia (former Soviet Union) in 1982. She lives in Newton, MA with her husband Ed Kaplan. They have two college age children, Aaron and Sima.

Janna Kaplan's CV

Arthur Larsen, Electro-Mechanical Tech

Art Larsen is the electrical/mechanical tech for the lab. He began work at the lab in 1983 as a summer job while a junior in high school. After he graduated from high school he returned to the lab to continue where he left off.

He has since taken a course at Wentworth Technical School, where he graduated in electronics. His describes his father, Arthur Larsen Jr., who ran the machine shop at Brandeis, a great influence in his life. He taught him the fundamentals of machining, carpentry and all the technical things that went along with his job.

Art lives in Marlboro Mass., where he was born and brought up, with his lovely wife, Joanne, and his two precious boys, Ben and Todd.

Amy Lavallee, Research Associate  

Amy Lavallee, a Seattle native, works as a research associate in the Graybiel Lab. She has a B.S. in mechanical engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute, where she studied abroad in Namibia and interned at the Johnson Space Center. Amy has an M.S. in biomechanical engineering from the University of Washington, where she worked in the Applied Biomechanics Lab and studied the developing mechanics of the pediatric neck.

As a member of the Graybiel Lab, Amy participates in many aspects of research including: equipment set-up, running experiments, data analysis, operating the Slow Rotation Room, and being the primary volunteer for all new experiments. Amy is currently conducting experiments focusing on the effects of sleep deprivation and motion sickness. She also enjoys joining the lab on their parabolic flight excursions to Houston.

Amy lives in Hudson, Mass., with her husband and son.

Lee Picard, Administrator

Lee Picard is the administrator of the Graybiel Laboratory. She is an active member of The National Council of University Administrators.

Lee lives in Weston, MA with her husband Aaron Picard. She has three sons. Jonathan is a student at RPI, Joshua an undergraduate at Brandeis, and Joey attends Weston High School.

Pascale Pigeon, Research Scientist

Pascale Pigeon is a research scientist at the Ashton Graybiel Spatial Orientation Laboratory. She holds a Ph.D. and master's degree in biomedical engineering and an undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering from the Ecole Polytechnique de Montréal, in Montréal, Canada.

During her education, she received numerous awards from Canadian research funding agencies. Her most recent award, a fellowship from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, led to a position as a postdoctoral researcher in the Graybiel laboratory and in 2001, to her present position of research scientist.

Pascale has published seven papers in referred journals, numerous abstracts in the fields of biomechanics and motor control, and has given several presentations at international conferences. She has served as a reviewer for the Journal of Biomechanics and the Journal of Vestibular Research.

Her recent work focused on the planning and control of reaching movements involving trunk rotation (the “turn-and-reach” paradigm), specifically the compensation for self-generated Coriolis and interaction torques. Her current project examines turn-and-reach movements after motor adaptation to the rearrangement of the relationship between voluntary trunk rotation and inertial rotation. Pascale also provides biomechanical expertise to other ongoing research projects at the Graybiel lab focusing on problems in motor control, posture and balance, and spatial orientation.

Pascale is married to Dr. Michael McPartland and has a son, Tristan, and daughter, Brigitte.

Alberto Pierobon, Research Engineer

Alberto Pierobon received his Master of Science in mechanical engineering, summa cum laude, from the University of Padova (Italy). Graduating in April 2003, his thesis was on the elasto-plastic behaviour of the human spinal servo, developed at the Graybiel Spatial Orientation Lab under the supervision of Professor Simone Bortolami.

Currently, he is working on mechanical and control system models for analysis of control strategies during voluntary movements in perturbed force fields.

Some of his additional interests include mountaineering, reading and enjoying life.

Ian Keville Schleifer, Computer Programmer

Ian Schleifer is a computer programmer and research assistant at the Ashton Graybiel Spatial Orientation Laboratory. His responsibilities include programming computers to control automated components of experiments with human subjects, writing software to perform analyses of collected data, and assisting with human subject testing.

Prior to being hired by the Graybiel Lab, Ian worked for the Computational Memory Laboratory, also at Brandeis, with principal investigator Michael Kahana. When the Computational Memory Lab moved to the University of Pennsylvania in June 2004, Ian chose to remain in the Boston area.

Ian graduated from Ithaca College in 2002 with a bachelor's degree in computer science and a minor in mathematics.

As an employee of Brandeis University he has enjoyed taking science courses offered by the school and intends to pursue a graduate degree in the future.

Joel Ventura, Senior Research Scientist

Joel Ventura is a research scientist in the Graybiel Lab. He helps design and set up equipment to run experiments, especially for the lab's 22 foot diameter Slow Rotation Room. His research interests include spatial orientation and he has a special interest in, and fondness for, motion sickness (in others).

Joel received his undergraduate degree in physics from Carnegie Mellon University and his graduate degree in experimental psychology from Brandeis University.

_Top

Graduate Students

Bernie Gabin

Bernie is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Physics at Brandeis University. He received his Bachelor of Science degree in physics and Astronomy from the University of Maryland College Park, and earned his master's degree in physics with the astrophysics group at Brandeis.

He is currently pursuing his thesis work with the Graybiel Lab. He is working with several of the of the other lab members on developing a brain-computer interface system to control a robotic arm using EEG signals.

In his free time, Bernie enjoys computer and board gaming, and working tech for the Brandeis' Shakespeare Theater group, Hold Thy Peace.

Heather Panic

Heather is a PhD graduate student in the neuroscience program. She received a BS in computer science from Louisiana Tech University and a BS in psychology from the Open University (United Kingdom).

Prior to attending Brandeis she worked as a research scientist for NATO, where she developed military training software. Her current research focuses on the sense of self-orientation during active and passive body tilt.

In her free time, she enjoys traveling, music, and growing her own food.

Sacha Panic

After completing a Bachelor's degree in computer engineering in 1997, Sacha went on to pursue a career as a software engineer. For more than a decade he worked on educational software, digital video broadcasting applications, and internet applications.

Although he enjoyed working with innovative technologies and mentoring and teaching junior software developers and graphic designers, in 2007 he decided to pursue a master's degree in Man Machine Interaction at the Delft University of Technology, with an honors degree in human factors engineering.

His thesis project, "Addressing patient motivation in virtual reality based neurocognitive rehabilitation," was partially done at the Sensory Motor Systems laboratory at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. This experience prompted him to focus his academic pursuit on psychology, leading him to the master's degree program at Brandeis University, working with Prof. DiZio and Prof. Lackner at the Graybiel lab.

In 2011 he started working towards a PhD in cognitive neuroscience, again with Prof. DiZio and Prof. Lackner as his advisors. He is interested in how the visual and vestibular systems interact to produce a sense of spatial orientation. 

In his spare time Sacha has enjoyed riding his motorcycle, dabbled with electronics and designed a transistor based synthesizer, created a 3d & virtual reality software toolset, and organized cultural events aimed at exposing the electronuc music, digital media & computer art (known as the 'demoscene') subcultures to the general population.