Alejandro is a Principal Research Fellow at the Jamieson Trauma Institute (2022-present) and a Senior Lecturer at The University of Queensland (2020-present). He leads NeuroRehabilitation and Medical Robotics Lab at UQ, which aims at co-developing rehabilitation technology and models of care to improve patient outcomes, and (co) leads the Rehabilitation and Outcomes Theme at JTI.

Alejandro has an interdisciplinary and multifaceted background in engineering and rehabilitation sciences. He has ~20 years of experience in top international academic, industrial and clinical rehabilitation institutions (Australia, Switzerland, USA, UK, Italy, Denmark). The diversity of working environments and professional roles provides him with a solid understanding of how to develop and implement innovations in rehabilitation practice. After his PhD in Human Motor Control and Rehabilitation at Imperial College London (2007-2011), he worked at the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab (former Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, #1 rehabilitation hospital in the USA for 33 consecutive years, 2012-2013). There, he worked alongside therapists and neuroscientists to develop a method to assess and discriminate between hypertonic conditions after neurological disorders. At Hocoma AG (Switzerland, 2014-2016), a world-leading manufacturer of robotic- and sensor-based technology for rehabilitation therapy, he was Product, Project and Core-Technologies Lead of various rehabilitation products used by thousands of people world-wide (eg, Lokomat, Armeo and Valedo products). Under this position, he gained a deep understanding of the business and commercial aspects of the rehabilitation device industry, including regulatory requirements, implementation and use in diverse clinical environments, and translation of user needs into tangible product features. He was Head of Technology at the cereneo clinic and co-led the cereneo Advanced Rehabilitation Institute (Switzerland, 2017-2019). He worked closely with clinicians, administrators and technology industry to co-develop and test healthcare delivery concepts integrating technology in rehabilitation practice, leading to radical changes in technology use in the clinic.

He has published >50 peer-reviewed articles and attracted >3.6M AUD of research funding, despite not being an academic researcher during 2014-2019 (relative to opportunity). 47% of his indexed publications are in top Q1 venues, spanning interdisciplinary fields in Medical (64%), Engineering (43%) and Neuroscience (14%) (source: SciVal). His publications have been cited more than 2400 times (h-index:22, i-10 index:33, source: Google Scholar, September 2024).

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