Biography

Diego L. Guarin completed his Ph.D. degree in Biomedical Engineering at McGill University, then moved onto a Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at Harvard Medical School, and he is currently a fellow of the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research working at the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute and Toronto University.

Dr. Guarin's research focuses on the development and application of engineering, data science, and neuroscience approaches to improve our understanding of the human neuromuscular system, to improve the diagnosis of neuromuscular diseases, and to support the development of new rehabilitation options. During his graduate studies, Dr. Guarin developed new experimental and analytical techniques to quantify the neuromuscular properties of human joints. These techniques are used to quantify the joint rigidity of spastic patients and identify the mechanisms responsible for the abnormal joint stiffness, facilitating the diagnosis and treatment selection. Dr. Guarin's postdoctoral research has focused on the fundamental problem of objectively measuring human movement, and on translating these measurements into objective and clinically useful metrics that can help in the diagnosis, assessment, and treatment of neuromuscular diseases. In particular, Dr. Guarin is working on novel non-contact technologies that utilize commercial grade cameras and machine learning algorithms to measure orofacial movements and improving the diagnosis of patients suffering from neuromuscular diseases such as stroke, ALS, Parkinson's disease, and Bell's palsy.