First, congrats to Lauren Branscombe, Josh Fleck & Josh Tacca! All seniors in Mechanical Engineering, who have contributed a tremendous amount to our research lab. Each of these individuals is a co-author on a manuscript (either published or in review). Of note, Lauren is completing both her BS & MS degree this year, and Josh Fleck is graduating as part of the Honors Program. Furthermore, each one of these students will be continuing on to do their own PhD in rehabilitation engineering. Lauren is headed to Stanford (initially rotating with Dr. Scott Delp), Josh Fleck is headed to Rice (to work with Dr. Marcie O’Malley), and Josh Tacca is headed to University of Colorado (to work with Dr. Alena Grabowski). Incredibly proud of each of these students. They will be missed, but we are excited to see what they do next!!
Second, congratulations to Kirsty McDonald, who just completed her own PhD at the University of Western Australia (advised by Dr. Jonas Rubenson, who is now at Penn State). Kirsty joined us this month in Nashville as a new postdoc and we are thrilled to have her joining the CREATE team!
Third, a couple new publications to celebrate. The first paper surveys different ways to compute ankle-foot power in gait analysis… with some surprising findings! In some ways this paper has been ~8 years in the making, to piece together various methods and insights, and resolve various inconsistencies. Major takeaway: one of the most common, seemingly innocuous assumptions in inverse dynamics gait analysis (treating foot as a single rigid body) can majorly skew our science, technology development & clinical comparisons. The paper offers analytical and experimental evidence, and offers specific recommendations on better ways to estimate ankle-foot biomechanics. The second paper is part of an international collaboration with researchers from Rome, Italy (where Prof. Zelik did his postdoc) & Brussels, Belgium — this work characterizes how kinematic coordination patterns change with walking speed and slope.
Zelik, K. E. and Honert, E. C. (2018). Ankle and foot power in gait analysis: Implications for science, technology and clinical assessment. J Biomech.
ARTICLE – PREPRINT WITH SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL
Dewolf, A. H., Ivanenko Y. P., Zelik, K. E., Lacquaniti, F. and Willems, P. A. (2018). Kinematic patterns while walking on a slope at different speeds. J Applied Physiology.
ARTICLE
Fourth, congrats & thanks to all who participated in National Biomechanics Day! We had over 200 visitors, the vast majority of whom where high school students, teachers and counselors. It was fantastic to share our science and technologies with all the curious and engaged visitors, and budding scientists/engineers!