In this episode, Dr. Milos Popovic talks about his transformational shift from aerospace engineering to rehabilitation research, and how it led to his invention of a medical device that delivers electrical stimulation to restore upper limb mobility to people with paralysis caused by spinal cord injury and stroke.
Originally from Belgrade, Dr. Popovic shares how he narrowly escaped Yugoslavia’s brutal civil war as military soldiers banged on doors looking for conscripts.
By fate, he received a call from a professor at the University of Toronto asking if he’d like to come study in Canada, and just days later he was on a flight to Toronto.
That professor, Dr. Andrew Goldenberg, spearheaded the field of robotics at U of T and would become Dr. Popovic’s longtime mentor, empowering him to then mentor a new generation of scientists at Toronto Rehab.