Jacob A. George, the Solzbacher-Chen Endowed Professor in the John and Marcia Price College of Engineering’s Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering and the Spencer Fox Eccles School of Medicine’s Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, is an expert in brain-computer interfaces. His lab developed a Luke-Skywalker-inspired bionic arm that directly interfaces with the user’s nervous system — it can be controlled entirely by thought and even restore a sense of touch to the user. Earlier this year, a patient with a forearm amputation had this brain-computer interface implanted in his residual limb, allowing him to take Utah’s “neuroprosthetic” home and test it in the real world.
But there is an even larger group of patients that George is gearing up to help next: individuals who have lost one or more fingers. Approximately 1 in 12 visits to the emergency room is due to a hand injury, and 92% of upper-limb amputations involve just the hand. And loss of the thumb or multiple fingers can lead to major reductions in dexterity and quality of life. Existing prosthetic fingers are mostly cosmetic or passively move alongside the other digits, leaving much to be desired in terms of functionality, comfort, and ease-of-use.
Now, thanks to a National Science Foundation CAREER Award, George and his colleagues will have the opportunity to develop new Luke-Skywalker-style bionic fingers that would be much more natural and lifelike than existing options. Integrated motors will allow the fingers to move based on thought, and embedded sensors will be capable of restoring the user’s sense of touch. Importantly, thanks to the unique physiology of the wrist’s nerves, users would be able to have this full brain-computer interface in the form of a non-invasive wristband, rather than having a device implanted into their body.
The NSF CAREER Award supports early-career faculty who demonstrate outstanding potential as researchers and educators. George’s award will fund this project for the next five years. The award comes through the NSF’s Mind, Machine, and Motor Nexus (M3X) program, which aims to enable intelligent engineered systems and humans to engage in bidirectional interaction, enhancing and ensuring safety, productivity, and well-being. The M3X program has recently been integrated into NSF’s Intelligent and Interactive Dynamic Systems (IIDS) program.
Since 2015, George’s work on brain-computer interfaces has focused on the hand and forearm. In the current neuroprosthetic arm trial, a BIOS direct nerve interface is implanted in the participant’s residual limb. The interface interprets signals coming from the user’s brain and translates them into the appropriate commands for the prosthesis. The process also works in reverse, with signals from the prosthesis translated into sensations of touch.
In George’s CAREER research, the principles that animate the direct neural interface will be applied non-invasively.
“The nerves of the fingers pass through the wrist relatively close to the surface,” says George. “This provides an elegant access point; we’re electrically tapping into the nerves through the skin in the form of a smartwatch.”
The research will systematically characterize the sensations that participants experience via this nerve stimulation; those sensations will then be mapped to sensors on a bionic prosthesis. Through a series of dexterity tests, the researchers will quantify the effects of this sensory feedback. Together, these studies will establish foundational engineering and scientific principles that will help guide the future design of wearable neurotechnology and partial hand neuroprostheses.
Additionally, this project will engage end-users and stakeholders to lay the foundation for future clinical translation and provide interdisciplinary training and outreach opportunities at the intersection of engineering and medicine.
The CAREER Award is unusual in that it supports not only research, but also the integration of research and education. George will use that support to expand the Utah Neurotechnology Training Program, an interdisciplinary training program created to prepare students for Utah’s rapidly growing neurotechnology workforce. The program offers stackable pathways including an undergraduate minor, undergraduate and graduate certificates, and a master’s degree in Neural Engineering, combining neuroscience with hands-on engineering and industry experience.
Through the CAREER Award, the program will grow further through new hands-on neurotechnology coursework, neuroethics training woven throughout the curriculum, and interactive K–12 outreach that brings technologies like the bionic hand directly to young learners. The program launched in Spring 2026, has already graduated its first certificate students and admitted its first Master’s students, and is helping build the workforce needed to keep neurotechnology research, innovation, and high-skilled jobs growing in Utah
Utah has a deep history in pioneering new bionic technologies, including the Utah Array brain-computer interface, the Utah Bionic Leg, George’s own Luke Skywalker-inspired arm, and now Utah Bionic Fingers. These advances are part of a distinctly Utah legacy of turning ambitious ideas into pro-human technologies that improve people’s lives. By pairing discovery with education, this CAREER Award helps ensure that the next generation of breakthroughs—and the scientists, engineers and companies behind them—can continue to grow right here in Utah.