Dr. Umer Asgher

About

With more than twelve (12) years at the intersection of academic research, industry projects and clinical trials, with advanced neuro technology and robotics platforms working at peak performance. My responsibilities have spanned the complete equipment life cycle: planning laboratory layouts, installing hardware and software, performing preventive maintenance and troubleshooting intricate electro optic, mechatronics, mechanical and data acquisition. I have routinely set up and experienced in 32 channel wireless EEG headsets, 14 channel mobile EEG devices and open architecture eight channel boards for custom biosensing. On the optical side I have gained extensive hands on experience with wearable fNIRS/EEG systems offering up to eighty optodes as well as dense 52 channel fNIRS/EEG platforms for cortically rich recordings. Alongside neural interfaces, I have worked on wearable robotic exoskeleton hands and collaborative robotic arms that support neuro rehabilitation and human–machine interaction studies.

I have tried to apply these skills in both laboratory and field environments. While working in and NUST, Pakistan and CTU, Prague I involved in designing and commissioning a hybrid fNIRS/EEG for neuroergonomics, human factors, synchronising optical and electrical signals within a AR/VR and flight simulator scenario driven. At National Center of Artificial Intelligence (NCAI )- NUST Islamabad, I am Scientific Co-Director, and I oversaw a complete ML/DL/AI Algorithms, neuroergonomics lab upgrade: retro fitting fifty plus channel fNIRS/EEG modules, installing shielded cabling and power isolation, validating signal integrity with phantom benchmarks and updating the risk assessment dossier. In clinical settings I calibrated exoskeleton servo drivers to meet ISO safety thresholds and integrated user triggered neural signals for patient controlled actuation, helping translate research prototypes into safe to use rehabilitation devices.
A core element of my contribution has been in capacity building. I tried develop and deliver more than twenty structured training programmes for engineers, clinicians and postgraduate researchers, covering electrode and optode placement, device calibration, firmware updates and real time data monitoring. Each course blended classroom instruction with practical troubleshooting drills, enabling trainees to service and fault find equipment on their own. To sustain those gains I authored detailed technical manuals and standard operating procedures including setup checklists, maintenance schedules, emergency shutdown steps and data quality audits. These documents were adopted as official protocols in two university labs and a hospital neuro rehab unit, where they helped cut equipment downtime by over thirty five percent.

I worked to strengthen my technical foundation through formal certification: I did various Certification in Engineering optimization, AI-Python, Matlab, LabVIEW Developer, Health & Safety, ISO standards, advanced AI-MATLAB, MATLAB Simulink and laboratory safety courses. I have routinely built acquisition pipelines in MATLAB/Simulink, EEGLAB, Python (MNE, scikit learn) and ROS, which enabled me to debug packet loss errors in wireless neural data streams, implement real time motion artifact suppression for optical recordings and worked adaptive LSTM classifiers, VT-Transformers according to cognitive state feedback.
I remained in high profile collaborations like EU Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe. In the EU Horizon 2020 ENHANCE project was focused on Enhancing Human performance in socio Technical Systems. Current engagement involve Vision based intelligent cam systems for east European Industries. Across all engagements I have tried to translate sophisticated equipment into reliable, user friendly tools that accelerate research, improve clinical outcomes and tried to uphold the highest international safety and quality standards.

Areas of Expertise