Joel Perry, Ph.D.

• Wearable Robotics and Exoskeleton Design
• Rehabilitation and Surgical Robotics
• Assistive and Enabling Technologies for motor disability
• Neurorehabilitation and Motor Recovery
• Technology-assisted Impairment Assessment and Training
• Telerehabilitation and Rural Patient Care

Joel Perry is an assistant professor at the University of Idaho Mechanical Engineering Department. He received his bachelor's in mechanical engineering from Gonzaga University in 2000, and master's and doctorate in mechanical engineering from the University of Washington, in 2002 and 2006. He spent a year and a half as a post-doc at the University of Washington Biorobotics Laboratory, followed by six years abroad as a senior researcher and project manager at Tecnalia, the largest technology research center in Spain. He returned to the US in 2013 on a TIFER (Marie Curie Action) Fellowship and joined the University of Idaho faculty in 2014.

Perry’s areas of research interests are focused on the development of exoskeletons and wearable robotics for neurorehabilitation, assistive technologies for disability, telerehabilitation, and rural patient care. He currently teaches undergraduate courses in mechanical design analysis and computer-aided design, is developing a new technical elective on assistive technologies for physical impairment and serves as one of the faculty advisors in the University’s nationally-recognized senior design program. In his passion to merge education and research to produce outcomes with real-world impact, Perry is also a member of the University’s Intellectual Property Committee and seeks to involve student in the development and protection of new technologies for industry.

Since joining the University of Idaho, Perry was awarded a 5-year grant from the NSF to develop a novel instrument for assessment of neuromuscular impairment, a U of I Seed Grant toward the purchase of a laser cutter and support for several student design projects from industry. He has authored or co-authored 8 journal papers, 24 conference proceedings, three book chapters and three patent applications (one awarded, two pending) and was awarded the U of I College of Engineering Outstanding Young Faculty Award in 2016.

Journal Papers

• Perry, J.C., Rodriguez-de-Pablo, C., Balasubramanian, S., Cavallaro, F.I., Belloso, A., Keller, T., (2013) Assessment and training in home-based telerehabilitation of arm mobility impairment. Journal of Accessibility and Design for All.
• Perry, J.C., Oblak, J., Jung, J.H., Cikajlo, I., Veneman, J., Goljar, N., Bizovičar, N., Matjačić, Z., Keller, T., (2011) A variable structure pantograph mechanism with spring suspension system for comprehensive upper extremity haptic movement training. J. Rehabil. Res. Dev., 48(4):317-334.
• Perry, J.C., Rosen, J., (2009) Isotropy of an Upper Limb Exoskeleton and the Kinematics and Dynamics of the Human Arm, Applied Bionics and Biomechanics I, 6(2 ):175-191.
• Perry, J.C., Rosen, J., Burns, S., (2006) Upper limb powered exoskeleton design. IEEE ASME Trans. On Mechatronics, Focused section on Medical Mechatronics, 12(4) :408-417.
• Cavallaro, E.E., Rosen, J., Perry, J.C., & Burns, S. (2006). Real-time myoprocessors for a neural controlled powered exoskeleton arm. Biomedical Engineering, IEEE Transactions on, 53 (11), 2387-2396.

Book chapters

• Rodríguez-de-Pablo, C., Popović, M., Savić, A., Perry, J. C., Belloso, A., Tomić, T. D., & Keller, T. (2016). Post-stroke Robotic Upper-Limb Telerehabilitation Using Serious Games to Increase Patient Motivation: First Results from ArmAssist System Clinical Trial. In Advances in Neurotechnology, Electronics and Informatics (pp. 63-78). Springer International Publishing.
• Perry, J.C., Andureu, J., Cavallaro, F.I., Veneman, J., Carmein, S., Keller, T., (2011) Effective game use in neuro-rehabilitation: user-centered perspectives. Ch. 32 in Felicia, P., (ed) Handbook of Research on Improving Learning and Motivation through Educational Games: Multidisciplinary Approaches. IGI Global, Hershey, PA, pp. 683-725.
• Perry, J.C., Rosen, J., (2008) Case Study : An upper limb powered exoskeleton. In Pons, J.L., (ed) Wearable Robots: Biomechatronic Exoskeletons. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Hoboken, NJ.

Conference Papers

• Perry, J.C., Balasubramanian, S., Rodriguez-de-Pablo, C., Keller, T. (2013) Improving the match between ability and challenge: toward a framework for automatic level adaptation in game-based assessment and training. In Proc. Intl. Conf. on Rehabilitation Robotics, Seattle, WA, June 24 - 26, 2013.
• Perry, J.C., Rodriguez-de-Pablo, C., Cavallaro, F.I., Keller, T. (2012) Assessment in Telehabilitation: toward patient-specific game-based training adaptation in the ArmAssist system. Intl. Conf. on Neurorehabilitation, ICNR 2012, , November 14-16, Toledo, Spain.
• Perry, J.C., Zabaleta, H., Belloso, A., Rodriguez-de-Pablo, C., Cavallaro, F.I., Keller, T. (2012) ArmAssist: development of a functional prototype for at-home telerehabilitation of post-stroke arm impairment. InProc. Intl. Conf. On Biomedical Robotics and Biomechatronics, Rome, Italy, June 25-27, 2012:1562-66.
• Flores, E.J., Tobon, G., Cavallaro, E., Cavallaro, F.I., Perry, J.C., Keller, T., (2008) Improving patient motivation in game development for motor deficit rehabilitation, Intl. Conf. On Advanced Computer Entertainment Technology, Yokohama, Japan, December 3-5, 2008.
• Perry, J.C., Rosen, J. (2006) Design of a 7 degree-of-freedom upper-limb powered exoskeleton. In Proc. 1st Intl. Conf. On Biomedical Robotics and Biomechatronics, Pisa, Italy, February 20-22, 2006.
• Rosen, J., Perry, J.C., Manning, N., Burns, S., Hannaford, B. (2005) The human arm kinematics and dynamics during daily activities – Toward a 7 DOF upper limb powered exoskeleton. In Proc. 12th Intl. Conf. On Advanced Robotics, Seattle, WSA, July 18-20, 2005, 532-539.

• ArmAssist hand modules development — modular add-on to support hand rehabilitation (pronosupination and grasp) in Tecnalia’s ArmAssist rehabilitation system
• Wearable Arm Support — lightweight, wearable assistive device to support shoulder and elbow function
• BiLateral Upper-extremity Exoskeleton for Simultaneous Assessment of Biomechanical and Neuromuscular Output (BLUE SABINO) – novel instrument for assessment of motor impairment in the arms, funded by NSF Award #1532239
• Wearable Hand Support — lightweight, wearable assistive device to support grasp and release of objects

• Outstanding Young Faculty Award (2015-2016) – University of Idaho College of Engineering.
• National Science Foundation Major Research Instrumentation Award Recipient (2015) – 5-year project titled “MRI: Development of an exoskeleton for simultaneous assessment of brain, muscular and nervous system output during functional arm and hand tasks.”
• University of Idaho Seed Grant Award Recipient (2015) – for purchase of equipment for laser cutting.
• TECNALIA International Fellowship for Experienced Researchers (2013-2014) – Fellowship funded by a Marie Curie Action to work abroad and collaborate with University of Idaho researchers in rehabilitation robotics.
• EARTO Innovation Prize finalist (2012) – top five finalist. ArmAssist Project: portable arm rehabilitation system for at-home training of post-stroke deficits.
• Top 100 best ideas of the year (2012) – Actualidad Económica (Spanish equivalent of The Economist). ArmAssist project development.