About Dr. Ing. L. (Laura) Marchal Crespo
Introduction
I am an Associate Professor at the Department of Cognitive Robotics, Faculty 3mE (Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering), Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands. My research focuses on the general areas of human-machine interaction and biological learning and, in particular, the use of robotic devices and immersive virtual reality for the assessment and rehabilitation of patients with acquired brain injuries such as stroke. A major goal of my research is to gain a better understanding of the underlying mechanisms associated with the acquisition of novel motor skills in order to develop innovative technology to improve neurorehabilitation. I develop intelligent controllers that modulate movement errors based on patient’s special needs, age, and training task characteristics using a wide selection of robotic devices for upper and lower limb rehabilitation. I further employ electroencephalography (EEG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to identify neurocognitive markers underlying motor learning.
Field(s) of expertise
Rehabilitation robotics, motor learning, neurorehabilitation, sensorimotor training, robot control, virtual/augmented reality
Education and career
I am an Associate Professor at the Department of Cognitive Robotics, Faculty 3mE (Mechanical, Maritime, and Materials Engineering), Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands. I am also affiliated with the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine at Erasmus MC, the Netherlands, and the ARTORG Center for Biomedical Engineering Research, University of Bern, Switzerland.
I obtained my M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from the University of California at Irvine, USA, studying robotics and virtual reality to enhance motor learning and neurorehabilitation. I then joined the Sensory-Motor Systems, ETH Zurich Switzerland, as a postdoc researcher. In 2017, I obtained a Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) Professorship and joined the ARTORG Center, University of Bern, Switzerland, as medical faculty. I became an Associate Professor at the Delft University of Technology in September 2020. Since 2020 I am the group leader of the Human-Robot Interaction group at the Department of Cognitive Robotics at TU Delft.
