Dr. Pons currently serves as the Scientific Chair of the Legs & Walking Lab at the Shirley Ryan Abilitylab (formerly the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago). In addition to his research leadership role at SRAlab, he holds appointments as Professor at the Department of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation, Feinberg School of Medicine and at the Departments of Biomedical Engineering and Mechanical Engineering, McCormick School of Engineering, Northwestern University.

José L. Pons is interested in the study and understanding of how central and peripheral neuro-motor and neuro-cognitive mechanisms are orchestrated for the emergence of (motor) function. This includes the study of how sensory technology and processing can be used for an objective assessment of these mechanisms and functions. This line of research is also then used to get an insight on the neuromotor system, which can inform better technology-based interventions.

Dr. Pons earned his engineering degree in Mechanical Engineering from Universidad de Navarra, 1992, which was complemented by a MSc in Information Technologies, from Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, 1994. In 1996, he earned his PhD in Physics from Universidad Complutense de Madrid, for his research work on dynamic optimization of robot mechanisms, addressing concepts related to quasi-statically balancing mechanical mechanisms against gravity and quasi-exact linearization of the equations of motion of robots for simplified control. In 1998 he was appointed as Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute for Industrial Automation (IAI) of the Spanish National Research Council, where he first applied his previous research in the field of Robotics for Rehabilitation, in particular in upper limb prosthetics. In 1999, he was awarded a position as Tenured Scientist at IAI, in 2007 a position as Research Scientist at the Centre for Robotics and Automation (CAR) and in 2008 a position as Full Professor at CAR. In July 2014, he was appointed Full Professor at Cajal Institute, where he led the Department of Translational Neuroscience and the laboratory for Neurorehabilitation.