Comaduran Marquez
Postdoctoral Associate, Department of Paediatrics, Cumming School of Medicine
Dr. Comaduran Marquez is interested in developing engineering solutions to improve the quality of life of individuals with motor disabilities, especially children. In 2010, during his undergraduate degree his team was awarded with the second place for the Engineering World Health competition for developing a low-cost electrocardiograph to be implemented in indigenous communities in the Mexican Sierra Tarahumara. Since this project, improving the quality of life of individuals has been a priority. To further improve his engineering skills, Dr. Comaduran Marquez did a master’s in science (MSc) and philosophy doctorate (PhD) at the University of Calgary. His MSc was focused on developing an instrument to measure electrical muscle activity in athletes. Such a device was targeted to help understand muscle desynchronization that might occur after a traumatic event. Further, in his PhD, he extended the device to measure electrical brain activity. This new implementation is targeted to better understand how the brain works during epilepsy.
While doing his graduate degrees, Dr. Comaduran Marquez also founded a non-for-profit organization in his home state, Chihuahua, Mexico. This non-for-profit organization is an extension of the motion analysis lab at ITESM, Chihuahua. The non-for-profit seeks to provide state-of-the-art physical rehabilitation to low-income individuals. Low costs are achieved through strategic collaborations in the public and private sectors, as well as a rehabilitation scheme that utilizes robots to provide physical therapy. The use of the robots allows for a single therapist to treat up to 6 patients simultaneously, thus reducing the cost of therapy.
Now, as part of the BCI4Kids team at the Alberta Children’s Hospital, Dr. Comaduran Marquez is working on developing new technologies and methodologies that allow children with complex motor needs to interact with the world around them. His main project aims to develop a brain-controlled Boccia ramp to improve inclusion of children with severe motor disabilities in paralympic sports. This is, to the best of our knowledge, the only implementation of a brain-controlled device for sports applications. The second project aims to improve brain-computer interfaces by removing artifact signals (e.g., eye blinks and muscle activity) from the EEG signal.
The Parex Innovation Fellowship will allow me to continue the development of the brain-controlled Boccia ramp. Such a device will allow us to better understand how children with complex motor needs use brain-controlled devices. At the same time, this device will allow these children to improve their quality of life by enabling them to play a sport for the first time in their lives."
Comaduran Marquez, Postdoctoral Associate