News
CREATE is recruiting new PhD students to join the team Fall 2020
Nov. 19, 2019—The CREATE faculty are excited to review graduate student applications for Fall 2020, and expect to have multiple PhD student openings. Prof. Zelik is looking for students interested to perform research related to movement biomechanics, human augmentation exosuits for lifting or mobility assistance, wearable sensing technologies to prevent musculoskeletal injuries and/or lower-limb prosthetics. Vanderbilt University has a...
CREATE fun, travel and festivities
Nov. 19, 2019—Zelik Lab in Calgary for International Society of Biomechanics Conference (Aug 2019) Prof. Goldfarb eclipses 10,000 citations of his publications. A great reason to celebrate and congratulate! We are lucky to have him as a leader, mentor and role model at Vanderbilt! CREATE PhD student Jantzen shows off robotic knee to visitors...
Congrats to Erik and Maura on their new publication on adaptive ankle prostheses
Oct. 11, 2019—Subject-specific responses to an adaptive ankle prosthesis during incline walking https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0021929019304798 Abstract Individuals with lower-limb amputation often have difficulty walking on slopes, in part due to limitations of conventional prosthetic feet. Conventional prostheses have fixed ankle set-point angles and cannot fully replicate able-bodied ankle dynamics. Microprocessor-controlled ankles have been developed to help overcome these limitations....
Zelik Lab attends ISB/ASB & FBS conferences in Canada
Sep. 6, 2019—We had a great time participating in the International Society of Biomechanics / American Society of Biomechanics conference in Calgary, Canada; and also sent a smaller contingent to the Footwear Biomechanics Symposium in Kananaskis, Canada beforehand. Conference abstracts (and a video recording of Prof. Zelik’s presentation) can be found HERE. Special congratulations to Emily Matijevich...
Mechanical misconceptions: Have we lost the “mechanics” in “sports biomechanics”?
Aug. 27, 2019—Enjoyed contributing to this publication: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0021929019304452 Particularly given the unexpected, Twitter-aided origins of Prof. Zelik’s involvement, which are summarized in the tweets linked below: Our Mechanical Misconceptions perspective just published in @JBiomech. In this paper, we discuss, in an accessible way, some common misapplications in sports biomechanics. This paper started a preprint and had a nice journey...
Post-Doc Opening: Biomechanics & Wearable Technology
Jun. 26, 2019—— THIS POSITION HAS BEEN FILLED — We are currently accepting applications for a post-doctoral researcher. The post-doc will contribute to multidisciplinary research projects at the intersection of human movement biomechanics, wearable sensing, signal analysis, musculoskeletal modeling, injury prevention, smart clothing, exosuits and other wearable technologies. Full details on position & how to apply are available...
Our new foray into broader science communication: Podcasts (three in the past month!)
Jun. 26, 2019—1) Emily Matijevich & Karl Zelik were guests on the Running Medicine podcast, discussing their PLOS ONE publication on running biomechanics, injury prevention and wearables, and well as common myths and misconceptions related to ground reaction forces, impacts and loading rates. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/do-ground-reaction-forces-reflect-bone-loads/id1097141405?i=1000442715015 2) Maura Eveld was interviewed as a guest on As It Happens – NPR/Candian...
Welcome to Anna (our new Research Engineer & Coordinator) & Summer Interns
Jun. 24, 2019—Anna Wolfe recently completed her Bachelor of Engineering at Vanderbilt University. She brings a passion for advancing prosthetic and orthotic technologies, and we are excited for her to join CREATE as our new Research Engineer & Coordinator. We also have a diverse and talented group of student interns for the summer, most of whom are continuing research...
Tripping people for science! Congrats to Shane & Maura on their new publication!
Jun. 12, 2019—This study published in the Journal of NeuroEngineering & Rehabilitation details a new stumble perturbation system that can trip people at precise moments in stride cycle, enabling us to learn more about human reflexes & how people recover their balance, so we can build similar reflexes into robotic prostheses to reduce falls & injuries in this...
Congrats to Dr. Matthew Yandell on defending his PhD!
Jun. 10, 2019—Matt’s portfolio of research spans from gait biomechanics to ankle exoskeletons and exosuits, with a unique emphasis on physical interface dynamics between the device & user. He has been an outstanding role model, team player and innovator in the lab, and we are lucky he brought his curiosity and talents here to Vanderbilt! Next he’s off to change...
Congrats to Kirsty McDonald & team on new publication in Journal of Biomechanics
May. 25, 2019—Unholey shoes: Experimental considerations when estimating ankle joint complex power during walking and running For studies that aim to assess biological ankle function, calculating ankle joint complex (AJC) power between the calcaneus and shank is recommended over conventional inverse dynamics estimates between a rigid-body foot and shank. However, when designing a new experiment, it remains...
Prof. Zelik publishes Op Ed on real-life supersuits for National Superhero Day (April 28)
Apr. 26, 2019—https://theconversation.com/its-2019-wheres-my-supersuit-115679 The piece has been picked up by >30 media outlets such as HuffPost, Phys.org, Curiosity.com, Orbiter Magazine & Inverse.com.
Popular press article discusses our vision for using wearables to help keep runners injury free
Apr. 16, 2019—In anticipation of the Boston Marathon, inverse.com releases an article on our wearable sensor research to monitor and prevent running-related injuries: https://www.inverse.com/article/54835-wearables-marathon-running-training This vision builds upon Emily’s recent paper that highlighted that ground reaction force metrics (like impact peaks and loading rates) cannot be assumed to reflect injury risk or correlate with loading on muscles,...
Congrats to Maura & Jantzen on receiving NSF Graduate Research Fellowships
Apr. 16, 2019—Maura Eveld (Zelik Lab) and Jantzen Lee (Goldfarb Lab) are both members of CREATE, and amongst this year’s recipients of the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship.