Ahomagai

Abhishesh Homagain

(647) 505-2111 | abh.homagain@gmail.com | Ahomagai.github.io

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Skills and Qualifications

• Data driven mixed-methods researcher with an ability to lead complex research studies

• 4+ years of experience with Python (NumPy, Pandas, Matplotlib, scikit-learn), R, and Tableau for
  hypothesis testing, data analysis, and visualization

• Clinical researcher specializing in neurodegenerative diseases and better understanding motor symptoms of Parkinson’s Disease (PD) through biophysical sensors

• Trained in measurement of clinical neurophysiological signals from EEG and EMG; interested in applying these skills to BCI

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Work Experience

Doctoral Candidate | University of Waterloo | Waterloo, ON
Sep 2022 – Current

• Developing a mixed-methods approach using semi-structured interviews and natural language
  processing to qualitatively assess how Parkinson’s Disease affects patients’ views and experiences
  of their homes

• Currently developing RNN based machine learning models to detect freezing of gait using a
  combination of accelerometers and biophysical sensors

Graduate Peer Tutor | UW Writing and Communication Center | Waterloo, ON
Jan 2023 – Current

• Advised graduate students in their writing and communication projects, from brainstorming to
  proofreading of thesis work, course assignments, and manuscripts

• Guided undergraduate students with their course assignments, asking probing questions and
  providing feedback to improve their work

Council Speaker | UW Graduate Student Association | Waterloo, ON
May 2024 – Current

• Chair of the graduate student council, responsible for advising and collaborating with the Board and
  President of the GSA on matters of concern, advocacy, and direction of the GSA

• Advised and facilitated discussion within leadership committees of the University of Waterloo on
  matters pertaining to graduate student experience (funding, academic policies etc.)

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Projects

• Deadliness in mass shootings: What factors determine deadliness of a mass shooting incident in
  the United States? (R)

  • Used data from the Violence Project to determine whether factors such as gun law strictness, gun
    ownership, political party affiliation, link to hate groups etc. affected the deadliness of a mass
    shooting incident

• Emergency room readmission: Prediction of high-frequency users of emergency departments using
  MIMICIII dataset & various machine learning models (PostgreSQL & Python)

  • Compared and optimized various ML models (XGBoost, Ensemble, SVM etc.) to identify the best performing model that predicted high frequency users of emergency departments

• Three parties of Ontario: Insights into 2018 and 2022 provincial elections (Tableau & Python)

  • Compared Ontario provincial election results and highlighted insights from the 2018 and 2022
    results across the three major parties, creating interactive geospatial maps of riding outcomes

• Wrangling Chess: Analyzing first move advantage and most common first move in chess (R)

  • Used R and Lichess.com to extract and wrangle unstructured text into usable tabular data and
    performed linear regressions to calculate first move ELO advantage and most common move

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Education

PhD Candidate, Kinesiology – Neuroscience, University of Waterloo
2022 - Current
PhD Thesis: Emotions, environments, and freezing of gait in Parkinson’s Disease

MSc, Kinesiology – Neuroscience, University of Waterloo
2020 - 2022
MSc Thesis: How do emotions affect gait?

BSc, Honors Kinesiology (Co-op), University of Waterloo
2015 - 2020

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Graduate Research

Publications

Emotions affect steady-state walking performance, PLOS ONE, Accepted September 14, 2023

Presentations

• Conference Poster Presentations

• Title: Postural instability relates to autonomic dysfunction in Parkinson’s Disease, International
  Congress of Parkinson’s Disease and Movement Disorders, Philadelphia, USA, September 2024

• Title: Emotions affect walking performance, International Brain Research Organization (IBRO),
  Granada, Spain, September 2023

• Title: Gait differences in virtual and real-life laboratory environments, International Society for
  Posture and Gait Research (ISPGR), Montreal, Canada, July 2022

• Research Talks

• Semi-finalist, Three-minute thesis (3MT) ISPGR 2021 (COVID postponed)

• Winner, Departmental 3MT competition, Faculty of Health, University of Waterloo

• Thesis Talk, Research Day, Center for Theoretical Neuroscience (CTN), University of Waterloo

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Teaching Experience

• Graduate Teaching Assistant (2021 & 2023) – 1st Year Human Anatomy Lab (cadaver lab)

• Guest Lecture – Cognition, Cognitive Dysfunction, and Movement (KIN359)

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Extra-Curriculars

Hacker | Hack the North | September 2023

• Created a working prototype of a single camera-based gait analysis tool, using OpenCV in Python

Member | Senate Graduate Research Committee | University of Waterloo | May 2024 – Current

• Represented the Faculty of Health as a voting member of the SGRC, providing input and
  recommendations to senate regarding changes in academic programs, finance, graduate courses etc.