There is no question that the novel coronavirus, also known as COVID-19, threw teachers and educators an unexpected curve ball this year. In response, the education team in the Center for Neurotechnology (CNT) discussed at-length which Center programs could be converted to an online experience in light of the pandemic and how to do that most successfully. Throughout the summer, CNT staff and faculty gained experience moving into a virtual learning environment, mastered the many challenges involved, and two staff members even published a paper about how to succeed at transitioning from in-person to online education.
Feature Stories
These articles cover many different aspects of the Center for Neurotechnology and its faculty, student and staff members. For more stories, visit the Engage and Enable blog

Students in the University of Washington’s Neural Engineering Tech Studio course have done well in an online, virtual learning environment, despite ongoing pressures from the novel coronavirus pandemic and current events. In this class, students design and engineer devices to assist people with a wide range of neurological conditions such as paralysis, autism, blindness and Parkinson’s disease.
![Tian Wang (left) is shown wearing a device he and his classmates (right [top to bottom] Samuel Broadwell, Katriel Looney and Kenny Lu) designed and engineered in the Neural Engineering Tech Studio. The team’s prototype, Haptic Vision, could replace navigation canes for people who are visually-impaired. Students from team Haptic Vision with their engineering prototype](https://centerforneurotech.uw.edu/sites/centerforneurotech.uw.edu/files/styles/large/public/flat_HV%20students.jpg?itok=bb9h76wj)
CNT-funded research in Howard Chizeck’s lab at the University of Washington is aimed at improving quality of life for people with protracted, often lifelong, neurological disorders. Industry partners such as Medtronic contribute to and accelerate this challenging work by providing investigational research devices.
Ben Ferleger is keenly aware of the positive impact neurotechnology can have on quality of life.

CNT member Amy Orsborn recently received two prestigious awards that will support her interdisciplinary research aimed at developing neural devices capable of healing and restoring function in the brain and body.
It’s said that there’s often more than one way to solve a problem, and Amy Orsborn, a Center for Neurotechnology (CNT) member at the University of Washington (UW), likely knows this better than most.
Orsborn’s research focuses on building knowledge needed to engineer devices that can collaborate with dynamic, ever-changing networks in the brain. At the CNT, she investigates how the brain learns to interact with and control a neural interface.

The Center for Neurotechnology is going beyond achieving traditional recruitment goals for underrepresented groups with support from Theater for Change UW and the National Science Foundation. In addition to its other diversity efforts, the center is facilitating a deeper level of equity and inclusion through an interactive theatrical performance developed as a workshop for faculty, students and staff.
How can people address racism, sexism, xenophobia and other forms of oppression if they can’t identify when it happens? These and other forms of discrimination can be nuanced and aren’t always obvious to everyone. Sometimes, instances of oppression commonly experienced by underrepresented students can be unintentionally overlooked; however, the impact can be deep and damaging.
