People

Md Shafiqul Islam obtained his B.S. in Industrial and Production Engineering from Shahjalal University of Science and Technology, Bangladesh. Before joining the Ph.D. program, he worked as a production engineer at Avery Dennison Corporation and an Industrial Engineer at the Textile Division of SQUARE Group. By participating in different projects and research work in the lab, he wishes to make accessible systems for people with diverse functional capabilities. For more information, visit his website.

Saman Jamshid Nezhad obtained his bachelor’s degree in Solid mechanics from the University of Tehran and his master’s degree in Occupational Biomechanics from the Sharif University of Technology. His research investigates the potential of using wearable sensors in monitoring occupational safety and health in field settings. He is working on developing Machine Learning algorithms to estimate occupational risk factors during lifting tasks.

Mahdis Tajdari is a first-year Ph.D. student. Her background is in Computer Engineering, and before coming to VT, she earned her bachelor's degree from the Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran. For her, it's important to create user experiences that are accessible to marginalized groups of society, such as people with vision impairment or older adults. She is eager to collaborate with researchers from various backgrounds and finds interdisciplinary studies particularly beneficial. Currently, she is collaborating on a study involving the utility of a haptic glove for object navigation for people with vision impairment. She is also a part of a study that measures sensitivity to vibrotactile cues provided on different body parts in various static and dynamic conditions. In addition, she is interested in the applications of AR and VR in medical settings, such as using VR in telerehabilitation for individuals with upper limb motor impairment.

Sakshi is a first-year Ph.D. student and received her Master of Science (M.S.) in Electrical Engineering from Virginia Tech (co-advisor: Sol Lim). She has a Bachelor’s degree (B.Tech) in Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering from VJTI College, Mumbai, where she completed undergraduate courses and projects in electrical and computer engineering. Her current project aims to classify external load levels in manual lifting using a wearable armband with sEMG sensors. Being naturally empathetic, she believes that the combined efforts taken in this direction will surely achieve the goal of maintaining a healthy work-life balance for everyone.