Aileen Naef

Aileen Naef is a postdoctoral researcher working in combination for the RELab and the Lake Lucerne Institute. Her work is part of the StimuLOOP project which aims to investigate how real-time feedback during therapy sessions can influence the neurorehabilitation of gait quality in stroke and Parkinson’s patients. More specifically, her work investigates whether personalized real-time visual and haptic feedback can improve gait quality and mobility after stroke.

After obtaining her B.Sc. in Neuroscience from the University of Calgary in 2015 Aileen moved to Lausanne where she received her M.Sc. in Bioengineering from the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in 2018. As part of her studies, she completed her master’s thesis at the Shirley Ryan Ability Lab in Chicago (formerly the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago). There her work focused on investigating how the variable cadence feature of a powered knee-ankle prosthetic could improve gait compared to a microprocessor controlled knee.

Prior to commencing her Ph.D. Aileen spent time expanding her skills with virtual reality technology through an internship at MindMaze, and in robotics via her work as a research assistant in the Learning Algorithms and Systems Laboratory at EPFL. These experiences led to her Ph.D. at the University of Bern investigating sensory overload and deprivation in critically ill patients, and how virtual reality may be a tool to help combat these extremes. She defended her Ph.D. in 2023.

Aileen’s interests lie in neurorehabilitation, human motion analysis, and using technology in novel ways to help improve patient outcomes.