Maria Jose Quezada Valladares

Maria Jose (Joe) is a graduate student in the DPT/PhD in Biomedical Engineering at Northwestern University. She is originally from Mexico and moved to the US to get her BSE in Biomedical Engineering at Arizona State University. As an undergraduate, she joined Dr. Claire Honeycutt's Human Mobility Lab, where she studied the startle reflex as a tool to investigate the role of the brainstem in finger movement planning for future applications on stroke rehabilitation techniques. She also worked with Dr. Hermano Igo Krebs at Massachusetts Institute of Technology creating visual aids for a rehabilitation treadmill system for people with paralysis. Her interests in rehabilitation research and engineering pushed her to pursue a dual graduate degree. Currently, Joe is interested in studying patient specific traits that contribute to the variability of outcomes after neurotrauma using iPSCs models and bioelectronics. Her long-term goal is to improve rehabilitation techniques by implementing personalized therapy. Outside of lab, Joe enjoys traveling, doing yoga, biking and trying new food and ice cream places.