Dr. Herbert Franz Jelinek
Dr. herbert jelinek Associate Professor Biomedical Engineering and Biotechnology

Contact Information
herbert.jelinek@ku.ac.ae 0504940526

Biography

Herbert Jelinek received the B.Sc. (Hons.) degree in Human Genetics from the University of New South Wales, Sydney including a double major in Psychology, followed by a Graduate Diploma in Neuroscience from the Australian National University, Canberra, and his PhD. degree in Medicine from the University of Sydney, Australia, in 1996. He previously worked at the School of Community Health at Charles Sturt University before joining Khalifa University, where he led a diabetes complications research clinic for 20 years. His work concentrates on implementing technology for rural and remote diagnostics in chronic diseases, covering diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and mental health. He has published over 400 papers, book chapters, and conference proceedings in areas of CVD, depression, diabetes, eating disorders and diabetic-associated complications, as well as the associated development of image and temporal data analysis algorithms and data mining / deep learning classification tools. His current research interests include cognitive decline in chronic disease, multimodal network physiology in association with brain function and the heart, and how biofeedback / neurofeedback can be used to improve mental health. He is a member of the IEEE Biomedical Engineering Society, the Applied Neuroscience Society of Australasia and the International Society for Neurofeedback and Research.


Education
  • PhD - University of Sydney
  • Graduate Diploma in Neuroscience - Australian National University
  • BSc Honors in Human Genetics (University of New South Wales
  • Graduate Certificate in Higher Education Teaching and Learning - Charles Sturt University

Teaching
  • Physiological Control Systems (BMED421)
  • Physiological Systems and Modeling I (BMED600)
  • Rehabilitation and Augmentation of Human Movement (IICS623)
  • Rehabilitation Engineering (BMED422)
  • Selected Topics in Biomedical Engineering (BMED694)
  • Senior Design Project I (BMED497)
  • Senior Design Project I (BMED497)
  • Senior Design Project II (BMED498)
  • Special Topics in BMED (BMED395)

Affiliated Research Institutes/Centers
  • Center for Biotechnology

Research
Research Interests
  • Virtual Reality for complex, chronic disease and biofeedback, Neurofeedback; Mental health; social neuroscience

Research Projects

Neurofeedback and Biofeedback

Physical and mental chronic diseases are not always successfully treated with medication. My research is investigating the use of neurofeedback and biofeedback to control blood sugar levels, hypertension, chronic pain, and depression. Neurofeedback and biofeedback have been shown to be possibly efficacious for PTSD, autism spectrum disorder, depression, and anxiety. This work will be in collaboration with Mediclinic Abu Dhabi. Brain-heart interactions and multisignal analysis will be investigated as part of a project in the department of cardiology to determine stress levels in patients attending PCI. Biofeedback and neurofeedback is also part of a project investigating student performance, mental health and cognitive function using multimodal analysis

Effect of stroke on movement variability and stroke rehabilitation

Together with the Healthcare Engineering Innovation Center (HEIC) at Khalifa University and Clevland Clinic Abu Dhabi I am contributing to investigating the use of nonlinear measures in characterizing gait changes due to stroke as well as balance variability and the influence on heart, brain, and muscle function. Collaborators at KU include Assoc Prof. Kinda Khalaf, and Assoc Prof. Ahsan Khandoker, together with a postdoctoral fellow and Masters students, as well as specialists at the Cleveland Clinic, Abu Dhabi, UAE, and international collaborators. Biosignal processing is part of the stroke research led by Dr. Kinda Khalaf as part of HEIC, where various biosignals are recorded to aid in interpretation of gait anomalies in stroke patients that can aid in the development of protheses and better rehabilitation outcomes. 

My interest is in identifying novel nonlinear measures for the analysis of gait variables to characterize stroke and the effect of lesion location. In addition, I am contributing to noninvasive stroke rehabilitation based on neurofeedback. With this in mind, I am developing a portable neurofeedback device.


Research Staff and Graduate Students:

Staff
Students
Sarah Nasrat PhD
Feryal Alskafi PhD
Efstratia Panagiotis Ganiti Roumeliotou PhD
Jawaher Alhammadi MSc
Farah Al Hosani MSc
Dana Al Hosani MSc