DJ Seo

He received a Bachelor of Science degree from Caltech.⁠[1]

He earned a B.S. in electrical engineering with honors from Caltech in 2011, having designed on-chip THz imaging systems in CMOS as an undergraduate.⁠[2]

He recounts that his undergraduate research began in MEMS, building nanostructures for temperature sensing, before he turned to small, energy-efficient wireless systems.⁠[3]

He recounts joining the Berkeley Wireless Research Center during his UC Berkeley PhD to work on circuits for next-generation wireless systems.⁠[3]

From 2011 to 2016 he was an NSF Graduate Research Fellow; he worked as an analog chip designer at Altera in 2012–2013 and designed low-power chips for wireless sensor networks at Bosch North America in 2014.⁠[2]

On July 8, 2013 he posted “Neural Dust: An Ultrasonic, Low Power Solution for Chronic Brain-Machine Interfaces” on arXiv as first author with Jose M. Carmena, Jan M. Rabaey, Elad Alon and Michel M. Maharbiz, examining the size, power and bandwidth limits of low-power neural recording systems powered by ultrasound and communicating by backscatter.⁠[4]

He recalls that Maharbiz proposed ultrasound at a meeting, leading the team to use ultrasound both to power the implant and to get data back.⁠[3]

MIT Technology Review soon described the idea by him and his Berkeley colleagues of sprinkling dust-sized electronic sensors into the cortex.⁠[5]

On August 3, 2016 UC Berkeley announced that a team led by Michel Maharbiz and Jose Carmena had published in Neuron a study in which batteryless “neural dust” sensors, powered and read out by ultrasound, were implanted in the muscles and peripheral nerves of rats; the first-generation motes were about 3 millimeters long. He, then a graduate student in electrical engineering and computer sciences, explained the technology in the release.⁠[6]

In 2016 he completed his doctoral dissertation, “Neural Dust: Ultrasonic Biological Interface”, advised by Michel M. Maharbiz.⁠[7]

In a 2017 retrospective on neural dust, UC Berkeley’s EECS department identified him as a 2016 Ph.D. graduate.⁠[8]

In 2016 he was one of eight people, along with Elon MuskElon MuskElon Musk is an entrepreneur who founded SpaceX and has long served as chief executive of Tesla; he also took part in creating PayPal, OpenAI, Neuralink, The Boring Company, and xAI. He acquired Twitter in 2022, and his businesses span spaceflight, electric vehicles, energy, artificial intelligence, and social media.Open the full entry and six other scientists and engineers, who started Neuralink.⁠[9]

In 2020 he was named to MIT Technology Review’s Innovators Under 35 in biotechnology and medicine; the profile said he led a team of about a dozen people designing low-power wireless computers to connect brains and machines, and that he considered his main contribution to be designing the necessary circuit boards and chips.⁠[10]

In November 2023 he was Neuralink’s vice president of engineering; of the founding group, only he and Musk remained, with other founders including Paul Merolla, Max Hodak and Philip Sabes having left.⁠[11]

In May 2024 he said Neuralink planned to implant its second and third participants in the coming months and to test control of a robotic arm, adding that the company was in an early feasibility trial and a couple of years away from premarket approval.⁠[12]

He appeared in episode 438 of the Lex FridmanLex FridmanLex Fridman is a Soviet-born, US-raised computer scientist and podcast host who works as an MIT research scientist on human-AI interaction and autonomous driving. His Lex Fridman Podcast is known for hours-long conversations with guests including heads of state and technology leaders.Open the full entry Podcast alongside Elon Musk and other Neuralink team members, the page describing him as COO and President of Neuralink; his segment covered neural dust, the history of brain–computer interfaces, the biophysics of neural interfaces, how Neuralink works, safety and future capabilities.⁠[13]

He said on the podcast that Neuralink wanted its surgical robot to get to the point of “one click”.⁠[14]

On December 5, 2024 he gave a talk titled “Interfacing with the Brain” at Stanford UniversityStanford UniversityStanford University is a research university in California founded by Leland and Jane Stanford in 1885 and opened in 1891.Open the full entry’s Department of Electrical Engineering on Neuralink’s fully implanted, scalable brain–computer interface and its first application in restoring autonomy to people with paralysis; the seminar bio said he holds a PhD in EECS and neuroscience from UC Berkeley.⁠[1]

In March 2025 he was listed among Neuralink’s key figures as its president; he and Musk remained the only members of the founding group still at the company.⁠[9]

Neuralink: Official website: https://neuralink.com/ (opens in a new window)⁠[13]