Stephen Helms-Tillery

Associate Professor, Lincoln Center Applied Ethics

Steve Helms Tillery is a neuroscientist at Arizona State University who is particularly interested in how the brain learns to use sensory information in the control of skilled motor tasks. As an undergraduate, Helms Tillery studied psychology at ASU while on a music scholarship. He then moved to the University of Minnesota to study neuroscience under John Soechting and Tim Ebner, where he examined sensory processes underlying kinesthesia of the arm. He followed this with a postdoctoral fellowship at SUNY Health Science Center in Syracuse under Peter Strick, working on cognitive processing in basal ganglia and cerebellum. Eventually he returned to ASU to study neuroprosthetics with Andrew Schwartz. He has remained as a faculty member at ASU, where he uses neuroprosthetics to examine how the brain uses sensory information to control movement.  In his efforts, he participates in studies using both human subjects and in nonhuman primates. As part of his appointment as a Lincoln Professor of Neural Engineering Research and Ethics, Helms Tillery also leads conversations to help determine how research resources can be marshaled to best provide lasting value to society.