The Human Sensorimotor Control Laboratory received a $50,000 award from the National Science Foundation to participate in the national NSF Innovation Corps program. The purpose of this grant is to move forward the translation of a technology developed in the lab to treat a voice disorder called spasmodic dysphonia (SD). 

SD causes a permanent hoarse and strangled voice that makes it exhausting to communicate. Doctoral student Arash Mahnan, lead engineer on the project, and Jessica Holst-Wolf, PhD, will form a team with business mentor Bryan Claseman to conduct customer discovery interviews across the nation. Interviews will take place over an 8-week period, and will include patients, otolaryngologists, speech therapists and other stakeholders in the medical device industry. The goal of these activities is to explore the opportunities and challenges for the possible commercialization of the technology. Jürgen Konczak, PhD, professor in the School of Kinesiology, serves as the principal investigator on the project.