By Jay Robb (he/him), communications manager
Students with start-up ambitions ask Stevie Foglia lots of questions for good reason.
Within the span of just three years, Foglia went from a Health Innovation Bootcamp participant to the founder and CEO of Neuro-Mod Inc. Along the way, he received the inaugural McMaster Postdoctoral Entrepreneur Fellowship, an invitation to join the national Lab2Market network, $100,000 in funding from the Ontario Brain Institute’s NERVE program plus pre-seed funding from the Faculty of Science.
All of that makes him a fount of knowledge, information and inspiration. Yet the most frequently asked question from grad students – how to convince reluctant or resistant supervisors to commercialize their research – is one Foglia can’t answer.
“I don’t know what to say,” says Foglia. “I can’t speak from personal experience. My supervisor’s been so incredibly supportive right from the start.”
While completing his masters in kinesiology and preparing for his PhD in biomechanical engineering, Foglia asked professor Aimee Nelson if he could join her lab.
Nelson leads the Human Neurophysiology & Neuroimaging Lab at McMaster. She joined the Department of Kinesiology in 2012 as a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Sensorimotor Neuroscience Control. She’s a member of the Department of Kinesiology and School of Biomedical Engineering, the McMaster Institute for Research on Aging, the Physical Activity Centre of Excellence and the Michael G. DeGroote Institute for Pain Research and Care.
All of that made Nelson the ideal supervisor – she’d blazed the trail Foglia wanted to take. “Dr. Nelson’s a world leader in neurophysiology and I wanted to train in a lab that’s at the forefront of the field. It would be an opportunity to learn from someone who’s both advancing fundamental science and translating that work into meaningful applications.”
Nelson welcomed Foglia into her lab on one condition – their focus would be on applied research. “I told Stevie we were going to move the goalposts. It’s not enough to publish papers and deliver presentations at conferences. The scientific discoveries happening in our lab need to change lives.”
She also gave Foglia a preview of how she leads her research group. “There needs to be a sense of logic to everything we do. If it makes sense, I’ll act. If it doesn’t make sense, I won’t act.”
And there was one final heads up. “We’re not going to agree on everything. Sometimes, that’s going to hurt. But honest conversations are important.”
Foglia was all in for a very personal reason. “Stevie grew up watching the effects of chronic pain and how it alters the lives of many people,” says Nelson. While some scientists and entrepreneurs have their eureka moment, Foglia was drawing from a lifetime of moments with his parents. “That gives Stevie a whole lot of drive and ambition to go with his remarkable talent.”
He was three years old when a catastrophic car accident left his father with a life-altering spinal cord injury. His father’s been in a motorized wheelchair ever since, living with debilitating neuropathic pain. Damage to the nervous system causes abnormal chronic nerve pain that creates severe sensations. Foglia’s father says it feels like he’s being repeatedly stabbed with a long, sharp knife.
Foglia’s parents did their best to shield him from their day-to-day challenges. They didn’t want him to worry. Life carried on. Every holiday, birthday and milestone moment was celebrated, even though it took a heavy toll on his father.
He knew his dad was in constant pain that medication couldn’t mute. From an early age, he wanted to find new and better ways to help people like his dad deal with chronic pain.
That became his life’s work and it started at McMaster in 2013. Foglia earned a bachelor’s and masters in kinesiology before studying biomechanical engineering and joining Nelson’s research group. He’s continued working in the lab as a postdoc.
In 2025, he turned that research into Neuro-Mod Inc. Nelson serves as Chief Scientific Officer while Harsha Shanthanna – an anesthesiologist and pain specialist in the Department of Anesthesia with the Faculty of Medicine at McMaster University and a leader in the medical management of chronic pain – is the company’s Chief Medical Officer.
Neuro-Mod’s a consultancy that trains clinicians on how to use repetitive transcranial magnetic simulation (rTMS). It’s a safe, non-invasive treatment that stimulates areas of the brain involved in moods and emotions. Nelson has more than 20 years of experience in the field while Foglia has spent five years in Nelson’s lab leading multiple clinical trials that have used rTMS for chronic pain, dementia and concussions.
Neuro-Mod is also set to bring augmented reality integrated sensorimotor exercise (ARISE) to market this fall. ARISE helps solve an all too common problem, according to Foglia and Nelson. Exercises prescribed and demonstrated in a clinic aren’t always followed at home. “It’s easy to forget what you’ve been told to do,” says Nelson. It’s also hard for even the most motivated of patients to stay dedicated to repetitive and monotonous daily exercises done alone without supervision, feedback or encouragement.
With ARISE, clinicians can offer patients in-clinic and at-home physiotherapy exercises guided by augmented reality. Specialized AR glasses supplied by Neuro-Mod guide patients through gamified and interactive exercises that offer real-time feedback. Foglia says ARISE is intended to help adults with neck movement impairments in key areas, including neck and trunk sensorimotor control, posture, vestibular balance, coordination, focus, reaction time, functional range of motion and target acquisition performance.
The glasses also let clinicians remotely monitor the frequency, duration and effectiveness of exercises and adjust accordingly without the need for clinic visits. “For older patients or anyone living in a remote community, getting to and from a clinic appointment can consume their entire day,” says Nelson. “ARISE offers an alternative.”
An initial study of patients living with chronic neck pain showed great results in terms of pain management and improved function, says Foglia. “When the study ended, patients and clinicians asked us how they could get more of this.”
The company’s running further studies at 11 physiotherapy clinics throughout the region. Foglia and Nelson are currently working on
additional AR-assisted upper and lower body sensorimotor exercises.
Everything Foglia’s accomplished in short order comes as no surprise to his parents. “Stevie is our inspiration and our favourite topic of conversation,” says Steve Foglia from the art studio off the back of their home in Newmarket. “We’re rooting for him all the way.”
They also believe their son was incredibly fortunate to have Nelson as his PhD supervisor. They met Nelson during Convocation and again at their son’s wedding last year where she was a guest. “Aimee is the best thing that could’ve happened to Stevie at this stage of his career. She’s so supportive. They have a special rapport.”
Nelson says the same thing about Foglia’s bond with his parents. “Stevie’s dad is remarkable and his mom is exceptional. Stevie has such a deep respect for his parents. His father’s accident has had an enormous impact on Stevie as a scientist, a researcher, an entrepreneur and a person.”
Faculty, Office of Undergraduate Research and Innovation, Research excellence, Undergraduate students
Awards, Faculty, Teaching excellence
Faculty, Leadership, Psychology