Douglas Weber, PhD

Douglas Weber is broadly interested in understanding the role of sensory feedback in supporting and regulating a wide range of perceptual, motor, cognitive, and autonomic functions. His research combines fundamental neuroscience and engineering research to understand physiological mechanisms underlying sensory perception, feedback control of movement, and neuroplasticity in sensorimotor systems. Knowledge gained from these studies is being applied to invent new technologies and therapies for enhancing sensory and motor functions after stroke, spinal cord injury, or limb loss. These principles are also being applied to develop wearable devices for enhancing sensory, motor, and cognitive functions in healthy humans. He is committed to transitioning outputs of his academic research into practical technologies that support real-world applications, and he works actively with industrial partners to bridge the gap from bench to market.

A founding member of DARPA’s Biological Technologies Office, Weber created and managed a portfolio of neurotechnology research programs to support the White House BRAIN initiative, launched by President Obama in 2013. He created DARPA’s HAPTIX, ElectRx, and TNT programs, which are developing implantable, injectable, and wearable neurotechnologies that restore natural motor and sensory functions for amputees, enable novel and drug-free therapies for treating inflammatory disease and mental health disorders, and promote plasticity in the brain to enhance learning of complex cognitive skills.

Weber completed post-doctoral training in the Centre for Neuroscience at the University of Alberta. He holds eight issued United States patents and has published extensively on a wide range of topics spanning sensorimotor neurophysiology, biomechanics, neural engineering, and physical medicine. He has mentored over 100 undergraduate, graduate and medical students and several post-doctoral fellows.