Why being in Utah changes the plan
The Utah Array was invented on this campus and two neural-interface hardware companies are thirty minutes away. Here is how to use that.
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If you were choosing a university for neuroengineering you could do a lot worse than the one you are already at. I want to lay out why, because most students in Salt Lake City do not know it and therefore do not use it.
The Utah ArrayUtah Array The 10-by-10 grid of 1.5 mm silicon needles invented at the University of Utah, the electrode in nearly every human intracortical BCI study to date. Related: Intracortical recordingIntracortical recording Recording from tiny electrodes inserted into the cortex itself, close enough to hear individual neurons., Utah Slanted Electrode Array (USEA)Utah Slanted Electrode Array (USEA) A version of the Utah Array with needles of graded lengths, designed to reach different depths of a peripheral nerve.. Glossary entry, the electrodeElectrode The conductor that turns ion currents in tissue into electron currents in a wire; its chemistry and contact quality set the noise you live with. Related: Silver/silver-chloride (Ag/AgCl)Silver/silver-chloride (Ag/AgCl) The standard electrode material for biopotentials, because its chemistry produces a stable, low-noise, low-drift interface with salty gel. , Electrode impedanceElectrode impedance How hard it is to push current through the skin-electrode contact, typically 5 to 50 kilohms with gel and megohms dry, higher at low frequencies. , Half-cell potentialHalf-cell potential The DC voltage that appears wherever a metal meets an electrolyte; two electrodes with different half-cell potentials produce an offset that can swamp the signal. . Glossary entry grid in nearly every human intracortical brain-computer interface study to date, was invented in the University of Utah’s bioengineering department. Blackrock Neurotech, the company that makes it, is in Salt Lake City. So is Ripple Neuro, which makes research recording and stimulation systems. The university has a shared nanofab where new electrodesElectrode The conductor that turns ion currents in tissue into electron currents in a wire; its chemistry and contact quality set the noise you live with. Related: Silver/silver-chloride (Ag/AgCl)Silver/silver-chloride (Ag/AgCl) The standard electrode material for biopotentials, because its chemistry produces a stable, low-noise, low-drift interface with salty gel. , Electrode impedanceElectrode impedance How hard it is to push current through the skin-electrode contact, typically 5 to 50 kilohms with gel and megohms dry, higher at low frequencies. , Half-cell potentialHalf-cell potential The DC voltage that appears wherever a metal meets an electrolyte; two electrodes with different half-cell potentials produce an offset that can swamp the signal. . Glossary entry are made, a rehabilitation hospital opened in 2020 with a technology focus, an epilepsyEpilepsy A tendency to recurrent seizures; its monitoring units are where seizure-detection algorithms get validated and where ECoG data comes from. Related: Epilepsy monitoring unit (EMU)Epilepsy monitoring unit (EMU) The hospital ward where patients are recorded on video-EEG for days to capture seizures before surgery. , Seizure detectionSeizure detection Automatically flagging seizures in EEG, a real clinical need and a good first machine-learning project on the TUH corpus. . Glossary entry monitoring unit, a sleep center, and a medical device competition for students with real prize money. The full list with the reasoning for each is on the Utah map page.
What to do with it, by year
- First yearBe in the roomOne Neuroscience Initiative seminar a month, near the front, one question. Makerspace and machine shop certifications in the first weeks. Five cold emails to labs from the map. One BioUtah event, where you will be the only freshman.
- Second yearBe in a labJoin a Bench to Bedside team in the fall. Apply for UROP so the position is paid. Ask whether the lab can sponsor your nanofab user training.
- Third yearBe known off campusBlackrock and Ripple, in person where possible, with a project you built and characterized. Shadow in the epilepsy unit or the rehabilitation hospital. Present a poster.
- Fourth yearConvert itOne of the above becomes a job or a PhD offer.
First year. Go to one Neuroscience Initiative seminar a month, sit near the front, ask one question. Do the makerspace and machine shop certifications in the first weeks. Cold email five labs from the map using the templates in the research ladder. Go to one BioUtah event; you will be the only freshman there, which is the point.
Second year. Be in a lab. Join a Bench to Bedside team in the fall. Apply for UROP so the lab position is paid. Ask the lab whether they can sponsor your nanofab user training.
Third year. Knock on Blackrock’s and Ripple’s doors, in person if possible, with a specific project you have built and characterized. Shadow in the epilepsyEpilepsy A tendency to recurrent seizures; its monitoring units are where seizure-detection algorithms get validated and where ECoG data comes from. Related: Epilepsy monitoring unit (EMU)Epilepsy monitoring unit (EMU) The hospital ward where patients are recorded on video-EEG for days to capture seizures before surgery. , Seizure detectionSeizure detection Automatically flagging seizures in EEG, a real clinical need and a good first machine-learning project on the TUH corpus. . Glossary entry unit or the rehab hospital. Present a poster.
Fourth year. Convert one of the above into a job or a PhD offer.
What I would not do
I would not treat the companies as a place to apply online. Their job pages are for experienced engineers. The way in for a student is a professor who consults for them, a talk they give on campus, a tour you ask for after building something real, or a BioUtah event where you introduce yourself to three people. Specificity is what gets a reply: “I built an eight-channel ADS1299ADS1299 Texas Instruments' 8-channel, 24-bit biopotential front-end chip used in OpenBCI and many research amplifiers. Related: Delta-sigma ADCDelta-sigma ADC A converter that samples very fast with a crude 1-bit decision and averages, achieving 24-bit resolution at modest rates; what the ADS1299 uses. , OpenBCIOpenBCI The open-source EEG hardware company whose Cyton (ADS1299) and Ganglion boards are the default hobby and research-lite amplifiers. . Glossary entry board and measured its noise floorNoise floor What your instrument records when the input is shorted or connected to a perfectly quiet source; everything smaller than this is invisible to you. Related: Thermal (Johnson) noiseThermal (Johnson) noise The random voltage every resistor produces just by being warm; about 13 nanovolts per root hertz for 10 kilohms, which matters at microvolt levels. , CharacterizationCharacterization Measuring what your instrument actually does, such as its noise floor, bandwidth, and rejection, instead of assuming the datasheet. . Glossary entry at 0.9 µV RMS; I would love to see how you test yours” works. “I’m interested in BCIBrain-computer interface (BCI) A system that turns measured brain activity into control of something outside the body, from a cursor to a wheelchair to a speech synthesizer. Related: DecoderDecoder The algorithm that maps neural signals to intended actions, such as a classifier or a Kalman filter. , Closed loopClosed loop A system in which the output feeds back to influence the input, such as a user adjusting their brain activity while watching the cursor it controls. . Glossary entry” does not.