Francisco Ramirez
A simple man
I am Pancho Ramirez, living in Sonoma, California. I am paralyzed and lost the ability to speak, but I refused to let that silence my voice. With the support of an AAC device, I am able to connect with people and continue my daily work. Today, I am honored to serve as Vice Chair of CommunicationFIRST, where I help protect and advance the rights of everyone who has disabilities and relies on AAC to be heard.
Highlights
Roles
- Vice Chair at CommunicationFIRST
- Participated in UCSF BCI research (“BRAVO” studies)
- Web and UI enthusiast, lifelong learner
Life changes
- 2003 – Survived a car accident that led to a brain-stem stroke. Began life with severe paralysis and anarthria.
- 2018 – Joined UCSF clinical trials to restore speech and enable robotic-arm control for people with paralysis.
- 2021 – First Speech neuroprosthesis Breakthrough. Elected to the Board of CommunicationFIRST; later vice chair.
- 2024–2025 – Featured across articles and talks about bilingual neuroprostheses and access.
Publications
Paralyzed man moved a robotic arm with his thoughts
Research on neural decoding and robotic assistive tech.
Brain implant helps communicate in Spanish and English
Bilingual neuroprosthesis enables multilingual expression
Speaking two languages again
How decoding models support an AAC individual to speak mu
Generalizable spelling using a speech neuroprosthesis
Pathways to flexible text generation from neural signals
UCSF Magazine
restoring communication with BCI.
The New York Times
The first speech‑decoding breakthrough