Doctoral Student
Heidi received her bachelor's degree in biomedical engineering from Washington University in St. Louis. She is working on her PhD in biomedical engineering with Dr. Amy Bastian at the Kennedy Krieger Institute/Johns Hopkins School of Medicine to investigate the role of the cerebellum in proprioception.
Cerebellar damage disrupts motor coordination, making movements variable and inaccurate. Rehabilitation is the primary treatment for cerebellar motor disorders since there are no proven pharmacological treatments. However, the effectiveness of current rehabilitation methods is limited. This necessitates both a better understanding of cerebellar function and better rehabilitative treatments following cerebellar damage. Her research focuses on understanding how the cerebellum is involved in proprioception, how proprioceptive deficits relate to motor control, and whether modulating cerebellar excitability with non-invasive cerebellar stimulation is a potential rehabilitation strategy for people with cerebellar damage.