Ali introducing the basics of MATLAB
Last month, USC Viterbi’s summer high school researchers in the Summer High School Intensive in Next-Generation Engineering (SHINE) program had a two-day training session on MATLAB taught by Mr. Ali Marjaninejad, a doctoral candidate in biomedical engineering.
Ali is currently working in the Brain-Body Dynamics Lab (BBDL) under the supervision of Professor Francisco Valero-Cuevas. He researches brain-machine interfaces (BMI), which are devices that act on signals received from the brain. Ali’s focus in BMI is on prosthetic-like devices that assist people in doing everyday tasks, such as lifting a glass of water. Furthermore, Ali uses MATLAB to process the data, which are recorded from the brain, and extract features that are useful in BMI. Ali is also a recipient of the Provost’s Ph.D. Fellowship Program - a merit-based fellowship for Ph.D. students who have demonstrated outstanding academic achievements. Aside from his work in the lab, Ali enjoys working out at the gym, playing beach volleyball, and watching movies.
Matrix Laboratory (MATLAB) is a multi-faceted program designed by MathWorks Ltd. and it is used to visualize computational processes. Many engineers and research scientists use MATLAB to see their ideas evolve from paper into fruition. Not only is the program used by many real-world professionals, it also serves as a great teaching device for aspiring scientists. For instance, Amber, one of USC Viterbi’s SHINE summer researchers in the electrical engineering lab of Dr. Alice Parker, learned from her SHINE mentor, Saeid Barzegarjalali, how to use MATLAB in order to find the conditions at which a high-level neuron (N6) is fired, as she discusses in this video.
SHINE students learning MATLAB
Many of the SHINE students who attended the MATLAB training used the program in their research projects in Robotics, Biomedical Engineering, Chemical Engineering, and Environmental Engineering. The results of their SHINE projects can be seen here.
