Farah Baracat
I am a PhD student at the Institute of Neuroinformatics UZH, Switzerland, in the Neuromorphic Cognitive Systems group.
© 2021. All rights reserved.
I am a PhD student at the Institute of Neuroinformatics UZH, Switzerland, in the Neuromorphic Cognitive Systems group.
© 2021. All rights reserved.
I know this has been said countless times, but hear me out… I’m genuinely fascinated by how our central and peripheral nervous systems generate movement. In my PhD, I explore ways to decode motor intentions from EMG signals (electrical recordings of skeletal muscle activity) to create more natural, intuitive, and energy-efficient control commands for myoelectric interfaces.
My work focuses on spike-based processing, inspired by the way information is transmitted in the brain 🧠, and integrates the now-popular spiking neural networks (SNNs) to develop more accurate and responsive motor control, with the goal of efficiently running these models on neuromorphic chips (hopefully? 🤷🏻♀️).
What excites me the most? Experimenting with human subjects! I love designing experiments to test new ideas for improving EMG-based movement decoding, running real-time tests with participants (especially potential prosthesis users 🦾!), gathering feedback, and iterating to refine the system even further.
📍 I am Egyptian, born and raised in Cairo 🇪🇬, currently living in Zurich 🇨🇭.
👩🏻🎓 I earnt a French Baccalaureate from L’Ecole du Sacré-Coeur in 2011. I then pursued a bachelor degree in Electronics Engineering from the American University in Cairo. In 2018, I moved to Zurich for my master’s degree in Neural Systems and Computation, University of Zurich (UZH) and ETH Zurich. I then started my PhD in March 2021 in the Neuromorphic Cognitive Systems (NCS) at the Institute of Neuroinformatics (INI).
🎾 I am passionate about Tennis. I learnt to play at the age of 6 and competed in national and international competition until I was 24 years old. Although I don’t compete anymore, I still play once or twice a week for the love of the game 😇 (if you want to play just hit me up).
🎼 I play the piano 🎹. Started my piano lessons at the age of 6 as well. I earned Trinity Guidhall diplomas grade 2-8. Now, I enjoy composing piano pieces in my spare time (it helps me relax 🙃)
✍🏻 I like writing articles (usually on random or personal topics) and publishing them from time to time on Medium. During college, I decided to pursue a minor degree in Rhetoric and Composition (because why not 😀) and it made me realize how much I enjoy writing.