Dr. Contreras-Vidal earned his Ph.D. in cognitive and neural systems from Boston University. He held faculty appointments at the University of Maryland-College Park, MD  before joining the faculty of the University of Houston and becoming a full affiliate member of Houston Methodist Research Institute with appointments in the neurosciences research program and the department of neurosurgery. Dr. Contreras-Vidal is a professor of electrical and computer engineering at The University of Houston. He directs a neural and rehabilitation engineering research program focusing on non-invasive brain-machine interface systems and neuroprosthetics. 

Dr. Contreras-Vidal has also been a charter member of the NIH Motor Function, Speech and Rehabilitation study section, and has served on multiple NIH, NSF and international review panels. He is currently on the editorial boards of Neural Networks, Frontiers in Neuroprosthetics, the International Journal of Mobile Computer Interaction, and  Computers in Biology and Medicine. He is also  the president-elect of the International Graphonomics Society. Dr. Contreras-Vidal is the chairman of the NIH and NSF funded 2013 Clinical Brain-Neural Machine Interface Systems workshop at the Research Institute, and an IEEE Senior Member.

Neural interfaces, brain-machine interfaces, computational neuroscience, rehabilitation robotics

Description of Research
Dr. Contreras-Vidal’s research program was the first to demonstrate continuous decoding of human 3D hand kinematics from scalp electroencephalography (EEG). His research focuses on four areas:
-Reverse engineering the brain
-Innovating rehabilitation robotics
-Utilizing neural interfaces as tools for reverse-translational studies of brain plasticity
-Development of noninvasive neuroprosthetics and wearable exoskeletons for restoration and rehabilitation of motor function.