Alaa Ahmed received her PhD in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor in 2005. She spent one year as an NIH post-doctoral fellow at the University of Michigan Medical School. From 2006-2008, she was a Whitaker International Fellow and post-doctoral researcher in sensorimotor control at the University of Cambridge. In 2008, she joined the University of Colorado Boulder as an assistant professor in the Department of Integrative Physiology.
Her research program focuses on understanding how the brain controls movement. She uses a neuroeconomic approach that combines techniques from neuroscience, economics, psychology and engineering to investigate the costs and constraints underlying human sensorimotor decision-making, learning, and control. Dr. Ahmed is the recipient of an NSF CAREER Award and a DARPA Young Faculty Award presented to “rising research stars in junior faculty positions at U.S. academic institutions." Her work has been featured in Forbes, Wired, Time, PBS and other national and international media outlets.