
Research Scientist
Dr. Karunakaran is an associate research scientist in the Center for Mobility and Rehabilitation Engineering (CMRE) at Kessler Foundation, and in the Center for Wearable Robots at New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) and Research Associate Professor at PM&R at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School. She is also affiliated with Children’s Specialized Hospital. She received her PhD from the department of Biomedical Engineering at New Jersey Institute of Technology and graduate school of biomedical science Rutgers in 2016 and M.S in Electrical and Computer Engineering from NJIT in 2007. Her research focus is on designing, developing and evaluating assistive and rehabilitative technologies.
Research interest includes designing, developing, and evaluating rehabilitation devices and techniques with a focuses on understanding the effectiveness of using Virtual Reality and Robotic exoskeletons as a rehabilitation intervention in children and adults with brain injury (CP, TBI, and stroke), using cortical, neuromechanical, and functional measures.