Nitin S. Email & Phone Number

Greater Los Angeles Area

As a PhD student at USC's Neural Systems Engineering and Information Processing lab, I am working to develop a Brain-Machine Interface (BMI) that can estimate cognitive states such as attention and confidence. This BMI can use knowledge of these cognitive states to enhance the ability of subjects to perform difficult tasks. To this end, I have developed a model for how neurons with spatio-temporal response fields encode information about intermittent events, such as eye movements or images presented on a screen. I then designed a novel decoding algorithm based on this model to estimate the times and characteristics of these events from spiking activity in real time. I validated this algorithm using extensive numerical simulations as well as data collected from a macaque monkey performing a delayed-saccade task. This work has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Neural Engineering.In order to investigate the neural correlates of confidence, I developed a stimulus discrimination experimental paradigm in which subjects must discriminate between two types of stimuli. Additionally, I have collected neural data from healthy subjects (EEG data) and epilepsy patients with invasive electrode implants (ECoG data) who performed this paradigm.

Palo Alto, California

Designed, simulated, and built circuits for the Nest Protect smoke detector using LTSpice for simulation and Eagle CAD for PCB layout. Developed Arduino code to interface the smoke detector circuit with Nest’s hardware test framework. Developed Raspberry Pi application to wirelessly communicate with Nest field test devices and log data to the cloud.

Uc Berkeley

Implemented a 3D phase imaging algorithm in an Android app that generates a height map from microscope images. The algorithm takes advantage of the fact that various wavelengths of light are focused at different points in order to calculate the phase of light going through a sample. The application will be used to process images acquired using CellScope, a cellphone powered microscope. Findings were published in the PLOS one online journal. Additional projects include designing CAD models for CellScope enclosures and mounts.

Developed an emulator for the Nest Protect smoke detector using the QEMU Platform.

Developed PHP wordpress plugins as well as front end features for the Daily Californian, UC Berkeley's Campus Newspaper.

Worked in EMC's Data Domain / Avamar Division. Developed a C++ data generation application for EMC Data Domain backup testing. Wrote a python script to automate EMC Avamar Server log analysis

Doctor Of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Electrical Engineering

Bachelor Of Science - Bs, Electrical Engineering And Computer Science