Brokoslaw Laschowski

Dr. Brok Laschowski is a Research Scientist and Principal Investigator with the Artificial Intelligence and Robotics in Rehabilitation Team at the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute, Canada’s largest rehabilitation hospital, and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at the University of Toronto. He also works as a Core Faculty Member in the University of Toronto Robotics Institute. His fields of expertise include robotics, machine learning, and neuroscience. Applications of his research range from robotic legs for persons with mobility impairments (i.e., including autonomous control using reinforcement learning and neural control using brain-machine interfaces) to computer vision glasses for persons with visual impairments. Overall, his research aims to improve health and performance via integrating humans with robotics and artificial intelligence.

Dr. Laschowski completed his postdoctoral fellowship in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine at the University of Toronto. Prior to that, he received his PhD from the Department of Systems Design Engineering, with a specialization in biomedical engineering, at the University of Waterloo and the Waterloo Artificial Intelligence Institute. His PhD research focused on 1) physics-based computer simulation of human-robot interaction with energy-efficient actuators, and 2) visual perception of human-robot walking environments for autonomous control and planning using deep learning. He received his master’s from the Department of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering also at the University of Waterloo, where he studied computational neuroscience and developed predictive models of human motor control using optimization, specifically optimal control theory.

Dr. Laschowski has published in many leading scientific journals, including the Frontiers in Neurorobotics, the IEEE Transactions on Medical Robotics and Bionics, and the Frontiers in Robotics and AI. He previously worked at the Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital and co-founded and directed the summer research program in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Toronto for student refugees from Ukraine, with funding from the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence. He has given invited talks at top international conferences such as the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) and has been awarded competitive and external funding (e.g., from the Canada Foundation for Innovation and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada). His award-winning research has been featured on media networks like BBC, CBC, Forbes, and Maclean’s magazine.