Sergey Stavisky, Ph.D.

Sergey Stavisky is a neuroscientist and neural engineer focused on both the scientific and engineering challenges necessary to develop brain-computer interfaces to restore patients’ abilities. He received his Sc.B. from Brown University in 2008, after which he worked as a research engineer in the BrainGate group at Brown for two years. He earned his Ph.D. in neurosciences in 2016 at Stanford University, where he studied the motor cortical control of reaching and developed brain-computer interfaces in a preclinical monkey model in Krishna Shenoy’s group. He subsequently pursued postdoctoral training in the Stanford Neural Prosthetics Translational Laboratory, mentored by Jaimie Henderson and Krishna Shenoy. Stavisky has published 26 peer-reviewed journal papers, has been awarded two patents, and was recognized with recent awards including the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award as well as postdoctoral fellowship awards from the ALS Association, the A.P. Giannini Foundation and the Stanford Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute, and a faculty transition award from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund. His work has been internationally recognized with the BCI Award and the Regeneron Prize for Creative Innovation.

Stavisky is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Neurological Surgery at the University of California, Davis. He co-directs the UC Davis Neuroprosthetics Lab, which develops develop systems that allow clinical trial participants with severe speech and movement impairments to speak and make reach and grasp movements. In parallel, his group seeks to better understand the neural basis of the abilities they are trying to restore. Stavisky firmly believes that ultimately it is the combination of new scientific insights and improved technology that will allow us to build devices that are more effective and capable of treating a wider range of neurological conditions.