Rate My Professor Richard Weir

Richard F. ff. Weir, PhD, is an Associate Research Professor in the Department of Bioengineering within the College of Engineering, Design and Computing at the University of Colorado Denver | Anschutz Medical Campus. He directs the Weir Biomechatronics Development Laboratory and holds appointments as Research Career Scientist with the VA Eastern Colorado Healthcare System (IK6RX002996, 2018-2028), Research Healthcare Scientist at the VA, Associate Research Professor in the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine at CU Anschutz, and Adjunct Professor in Integrative Physiology at CU Boulder. Weir attended Trinity College Dublin, where he pursued biomedical engineering, and earned his master’s degree and PhD in biomedical engineering from Northwestern University. Prior to joining CU Denver in 2011, he headed a laboratory at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago.

Weir's research interests center on prosthetic hands and arms, developing technologies for natural control, multi-degree-of-freedom actuation, and sensory feedback. Innovations from his lab include implantable myoelectric sensors (IMES) for intramuscular EMG recording, enabling advanced prosthesis control following human implantation; optogenetic interfaces for optical read-out and modulation of peripheral nerve activity; and 3D-printed prosthetic fingers commercialized through Point Designs, LLC, which he co-founded. Key publications include "Mechanical design and performance specifications of anthropomorphic prosthetic hands: A review" (2013), "Implantable myoelectric sensors (IMESs) for intramuscular electromyogram recording" (2009), "The optimal controller delay for myoelectric prostheses" (2007), "Design and validation of a morphing myoelectric hand posture controller based on principal component analysis of human grasping" (2014), "Optical read-out of neural activity in mammalian peripheral axons: Calcium signaling at nodes of Ranvier" (2017), and "Toward higher-performance bionic limbs for wider clinical use" (2023). His work, funded by VA, NIH, and DARPA, impacts amputee rehabilitation, neural engineering, and implantable devices.