June 2019

ISB Now - June 2019 Now Available

ISB News

President's Blog - Joe Hamill

ISB Election Results - Andrew Cresswell

Students Corner - Melissa Boswell

ISB/ASB 2019 Calgary Update - Walter Herzog

ISB Tutorials - Runaway success!

Economically Developing Countries Report - Felipe P Carpes

Outside ISB and Technical Group News

Footwear Biomechanics Group

Motor Control Working Group

Comparative Neuromuscular Biomechanics Seed Group

A word from our sponsors.... 

Tekscan (Gold Sponsor)

Presidents Blog - June 2019

The ISB Congress in Calgary will mark the end of my Presidency of the International Society of Biomechanics.  Thus, this is the last Presidential Blog message that I shall write before handing over the gavel into the capable hands of Professor Toni Arndt in Calgary.  It has been a wonderful exerpience for me to serve as the ISB President for the last two years.  I hope that I have lived up to the legacy of the past presidents.  I would like to thank the members of the Executive Council who served during my time as President.  These individuals have volunteered their precious time to help promote the Society.  In particular, I would like to thank Graeme Wood, ISB Treasurer, for his many years of work for the Society.

In the last two years, I have had the opportunity to visit a number of countries during which time I promoted the goals and ideals of the International Society of Biomechanics.  I visited Singapore, Portugal, Brazil, Germany, Australia, Czech Republic, England, Hong Kong, China and Ireland.  In each country, I presented the opportunities for professionals and students within the ISB.  In particular, I emphasized the student grant program offered by ISB.  I believe this program is essential to ISB and the promotion of biomechanics worldwide.

The word ‘international’ has always been very important to me and implies to me a network of scientists and organizations.  In the International Society of Biomechanics, we have a number of affiliate societies from a number of countries including several new societies that are presently being formed and who will shortly apply for affiliate status in ISB.  It is my hope that many other national biomechanics organizations will become part of the wider network of ISB.  It should be clear that there are many advantages for these national organizations to do so.  For example, global exposure to our work, educational resources for students and visiting scholars, technical resources and, most important, cooperative intellectual opportunities. 

A further example of the international nature of ISB is the results of our recent election for the new President-Elect and Executive Council.  The new President-Elect is from Europe; three councilors are from Australia, three from North America and two from Europe, and one each from New Zealand and Korea.  In addition, the Executive Council will have two appointed representatives from South America and Asia. 

Recently, I had the privilege of speaking at the Brazilian Society of Biomechanics meeting in Manaus, a city in Amazonia state.  I was invited to Brazil by Felipe Carpes, the President of the Brazilian Society, who is also a Councilor on the ISB Executive Council.  This conference had over 600 delegates from all over Brazil and several other South American countries.  This is the second time that I have spoken at this conference, the last time in 2009, and I am very pleased that the level of research has continued to progress.  I was very impressed by the student poster presentations on a number of topics ranging from tissue biomechanics to ergonomics to musculoskeletal biomechanics.  In addition, I had the opportunity to meet many faculty members from Brazilian universities and discuss aspects of research and intellectual cooperation opportunities.  I also managed to see and take a boat ride on the Amazon River.  Absolutely incredible!

The 2019 ISB Congress in Calgary, Canada is just around the corner.  I have been informed that over 1900 abstracts were submitted making this possibly the largest ISB Congress of all.  The program is impressive and I know that the Congress and the satellite meetings will be intellectually stimulating.  The website for the 2019 Congress can be found at:

https://www.isb2019.com/

Lastly, I want to thank all of those who trusted me to guide ISB for the last two years.  It has been an honor to serve ISB in this capacity.  I hope that I will see many of the Society membership in Calgary at the ISB2019 Congress.

Prof Joseph Hamill

ISB President 2017-19

ISB Election Results

The International Society of Biomechanics Executive Council election results were recently announced. Below we put some faces to the names - 

Alberto Leardini (Italy) - President Elect

Jacqueline Alderson (Australia)	Dario Cazzola (UK)	Janet Dufek (USA)
Jennifer Shin (Korea)	Katherine Boyer (USA)	Tim Derrick (USA)
Glen Lichtwark - (Australia)	Elizabeth Clarke - (Australia)	Thor Besier - (New Zealand)
Daniel Hahn (Germany)

Megan Smidebush (USA) - Student Representative

Thank you to all who nominated and all who voted for our elections.

Prof Andrew Cresswell (Past President)

Students Corner

I am looking forward to meeting many of you in Calgary this July for ISB/ASB 2019! If you haven't already done so.... click here to register now!

Student events are described below – currently, the only event with tickets is the Student Mentorship lunch. If you are still interested in participating in the other events, please send me an email and I will add you to the waitlist in order of emails! After signing up for the student mentorship lunch, we will contact you to get more information about your interests and match you with a mentor to sit with during the lunch.

Student accommodation is available on the ISB 2019 website here. I would also like to encourage you to discuss accommodation sharing opportunities via this Google Sheet and/or Student Members Facebook Group.

ISB/ASB 2019 Student Events

Registration for ISB/ASB 2019 is officially open and there are exciting events available for students!  You can sign up for the events through registration, including:

Information on student accommodation, events, and grants can be found here.

Available Student Grants

There are grants available to ISB Student Members including:

1. Developing Country Student Travel Grant: Students from developing countries may be eligible for travel grants funded by The University of Calgary and Delsys Inc. Detailed information on how to apply for this grant is available here.   
2. The International Travel Grant program (ITG): In order to allow student members to travel abroad to experience science in other countries and cultures, and to build up international collaborations we will offer several grants of up to $US2500 for travel related to biomechanics research (due May 30, 2019)

Additional information and applications can be found here.

Other grants especially for students can be found at the ISB website.

Biomechanics on our Minds (BOOM) Podcast

We have newly released episodes of Biomechanics on Our Minds (BOOM) listed below!  It is available for free on SoundCloud, iTunes, and Spotify.  You can email us with ideas for biomechanics topics, what you would like to hear about, or to share a “research fail” on the podcast here.

• Episode 14: MAP BOOM and the Future of Wearables– In episode 14, we talk with Associate Professor Thor Besier of The University of Auckland about the Musculoskeletal Atlas Project and the future of wearables! Our Bit of Boom is brought to you by Biomechanics in the Wild (sites.nd.edu/biomechanics-in-the-wild/) and we end with our most recent research fails.
• Episode 12: Emphasis on International - In this Episode, we talk with Dr. Sam Hamner, Director of Product Innovation at Cala Health. We learn about his experiences in design, non-profits, start-ups, AND how Jewish mysticism influenced his path in biomechanics!

Connect with ISB on Social Media

Keep up to date with ISB by liking our ISB Facebook Page, joining the Student Members Facebook Page and following ISB on Twitter! If you have any feedback, comments, suggestions or questions please feel free to contact me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Kind Regards,

Melissa Boswell (Student representative 2017-2019)

ISB/ASB 2019 Congress Update

Fifty-eight days to the opening of ISB/ASB 2019. Abstracts have been reviewed carefully, the program has been finalized, and we are ready to welcome you to Calgary for the Opening Ceremony and the Wartenweiler Memorial Lecture by Hugh Herr on Wed July 31^st at 5PM. The Wartenweiler Lecture will be one of the highlights of the conference, don’t miss it.

At the end of the pre-registration period, we had over 1500 participants, suggesting that the final number of attendees will be more than 2,000. We are happy for the support and excitement, but a conference that will almost double the number of previous meetings brings its own challenges. There will be 11 parallel oral sessions, and three 2-hour poster sessions with almost 400 presenters each. We are trying hard to make this enormous stream of information and presentations digestible for all.

By now, you will have been informed if your abstract will be presented in an oral or a poster session. Please consider that 2 out of 3 abstract submissions will be presented as posters. Also, note that decisions about poster/oral were made purely based on the fit of your work with others, that means we will have oral sessions where all presentations are focused on the same topic. Oral/poster presentations were not chosen based on reviewer scores, and thus many excellent abstracts that were ranked highly were assigned to poster sessions. We will make sure that the poster sessions will be an excellent forum for presenting your work, and will receive the attention they deserve.  

As you prepare for the conference, keep the following in mind: For the poster sessions, adhere strictly to the size requirements (0.9 m in width and 1.2 m in height). Detailed requirements were sent to you earlier, and are also posted on the website. Please check if you need any clarification.

For oral presentations in a regular session, you will have a time slot of 12 minutes: 8 minutes for presentation and 4 minutes for changing presenters and questions. We will be enforcing the 8 min. limit strictly, so please adhere to it in fairness to the other speakers, and in fairness to the spectators who deserve to question you about your work.

We are particularly happy to have a great number of participants from economically developing countries. We are supporting 58 students by paying for their registration and five days of full accommodation in one of the conference hotels. Furthermore, we have supported another 30+ academics from EDC countries with reduced registration. We invested more than $ 85,000 for supporting EDC participants, but even that was not enough. So, in a last effort, ISB and ASB provided another $10,000 each for supporting EDC members, which will allow is to support more than 120 EDC participants for a total of more than $ 100,000. We are grateful to the University of Calgary, Delsys Inc., the de Luca Foundation, and ISB/ASB for their support of the EDC initiative.    

We are excited about the conference, and I hope so are you. Visit our webpage at https://isb2019.com and look at the fabulous keynote and invited speakers, and all the exciting awards and award winners. We are ready to host the world of biomechanics and hope that you are ready for a week of stimulating science, an exciting social program, and hopefully an excursion to the incomparable Rocky Mountains. We can’t wait to welcome you all to our beautiful city and country.

Walter Herzog (in behalf of the organizing committee)

ISB tutorials reach high participation

Over 200 participants have already registered for the ISB tutorials in the opening day of ISB/ASB2019. Due to the high level of interest, the organizers have increased the capacity for the tutorials and there are new tickets available. Choose your sessions of interest from Paradigms of running shoe biomechanics or Statistics and biomechanics, and Bone strength and physical activity or Standardization of reporting kinetic data in biomechanics, and buy your tickets at https://isb2019.com/en/buy-tickets.

EDC Officer Report - Felipe P Carpes

Brazilian Congress and Latin American Meeting of Biomechanics in Brazil

South America community of biomechanics celebrated the biomechanics during the XVIII Brazilian Congress of Biomechanics during the days of May 1-4^th in the city of Manaus. As part of the program, the II Latin American Meeting of Biomechanics was promoted. The event received ~400 abstract submission and more than 500 participants. The event was organized by the Federal University of Amazonas and State University of Amazonas and happened in the Natal Convention Center.

Brazilian Society of Biomechanics supported the travel of 9 students to Manaus and awarded a number of young and senior researchers that presented their abstracts during the conference.

Speakers at the Latin American Meeting of Biomechanics (from Brazil, Uruguay and Colombia)	Parallel sessions discussing different topics of biomechanics

Mentoring session for students

Diversity was celebrated with performance of local artists.

Four rooms were always full of biomechanics students and researchers interested in the variety of the congress program.

Developing Countries Grant Competition 2019 (DCGC 2019)

During the upcoming ISB Congress in Calgary DCGC 2019 will award five projects from EDC groups in biomechanics with the purpose to incentive innovative and collaborative activities to develop biomechanics in EDC regions. The DCCG if supported by ISB, Tekscan, and Vicon Motion Systems. There were 7 applications. The proposals are now being send out for the first evaluation before the oral presentation on August 1^st, 01:00 PM. Stop by and check out this great event during the ISB congress!

We want you to join this journey!

We are looking for new EDC initiatives. Why not starts your project today? For details on proposing an EDC project, check the ISB website (link bellow) and contact Prof. Carpes. He will provide all the support.

Filipe Carpes (EDC Officer)

Footwear Biomechanics Group

The 2019 Footwear Biomechanics Symposium, which will take place within the beautiful Pomeroy Lodge in Kananaskis, Alberta, Canada, July 28-July 30, immediately prior to the 2019 International Society of Biomechanics Congress continues to take shape. The full scientific and social program has been released and includes 4 keynote speakers (Thor Besier, Breanne Everett, Richard Kent and Rodger Kram), 4 invited speakers (Sarah Ridge, Isabel Sacco, Julie Steele and Helen Woo), and over 110 oral/poster presentations! Aside from presentations, the program includes many networking and social activities including a Welcome Reception, Conference Banquet and an Outdoor Activity of hiking or white-water rafting. The full scientific and social program is available at https://fbs2019.footwearbiomechanics.org/program.

The Footwear Biomechanics Symposium promotes research and the discussion of biomechanical issues related to functional footwear, including sport shoes, clinical/prescription footwear and footwear designed for special purposes. The conference not only includes many ground-breaking presentations within the realm of footwear science but is fortunate to have a large industry presence including scientists and representatives from many of the top footwear companies.

We would like to thank our conference sponsors: University of Calgary: Faculty of Kinesiology, Nike, Brooks, Novel, Xsensor, Gaitup, Fila, Li-Ning, Mizuno, Salomon and Under Armour. Registration for the conference remains open and we look forward to seeing everyone in July!  

https://fbs2019.footwearbiomechanics.org/registration

Footwear Biomechanics Group (FBG) Membership

Don’t forget to purchase or renew your FBG membership at http://footwearbiomechanics.org/membership!! The current membership is £90 GBP (regular) or £45 GBP (student) for two years and includes the following benefits:

• A discount on your registration fee for the upcoming 14^th biennial Footwear Biomechanics Symposium (FBS) taking place in Kananaskis, Canada in July 2019
• A two year subscription to Footwear Science, the official journal of the FBG
• Eligibility to vote for Footwear Biomechanics Group Executive Board members
• Eligibility to apply for Footwear Biomechanics Symposium Travel Grants to present at the FBS

Footwear Biomechanics Group Executive Board Elections

The FBG wishes to thank everyone who forwarded nominations to fulfill open positions on the Executive Board.

• Chairperson Elect
• Informatics Officer
• Industry Representative
• Student Representative

Several nominations were received and we’re currently processing them. Please check the FBG website for the most recent updates on the nominees and election information!! https://www.footwearbiomechanics.org

Footwear Biomechanics Symposium 2019 – Student Travel Grants

To support the opportunity for students to present their outstanding work at FBS 2019, we offered travel grants ($500/$1000 USD) for the first time. Eligibility was dependent on:

• FBG membership of the applicant
• FBG membership of the applicant’s supervisor
• Applicants must be first author and presenter of the paper
• Not accepting an ISB travel grant in the same year

Amongst the eligible applicants, the students receiving travel grants this year are listed below. This was based on the quality of their abstracts and applications.

Pieter Van den Berghe

Ghent University

Title: Consolidation of the atypical rearfoot strike pattern in distance runners and linkage to tibial shocks

Supervisor: Prof em Dirk de Clercq

Ethan Steiner

University of Massachusetts

Title: Impact of variable stiffness shoes on medial knee contact forces

Supervisor: Dr Katherine Boyer

We wish to congratulate Pieter and Ethan on a job well done and we look forward to the presentation of their papers in Kananaskis!

Motor Control Working Group

10^th Symposium on Motor Control in Biomechanics at ISB/ASB 2019

The next symposium of the ISB Working Group in Motor Control will take place on Friday, August 2^nd 2019 in conjunction with the ISB/ASB 2019 conference in Calgary (Canada).

When: Friday, August 2^nd 2019

Where: ISB/ASB 2019 Meeting, Telus Convention Centre, 120 Ninth Avenue SE, Calgary, Alberta, Canada T2G 0P

Registration and Fee: Attendance is free for all ISB/ASB attendees.

Symposium Details: See http://www.mcg.isbweb.org/symposia-isb-asb-2019.html

Invited Speakers:

• Dr. Lena Ting (Emory University and Georgia Institute of Technology, USA)
• Dr. Francisco Valero-Cuevas (University of Southern California, USA)
• Dr. Julia Choi (University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA)
• Dr. Yasuo Kawakami (Waseda University, Japan)
• Dr. Emma Hodson-Tole (Manchester Metropolitan University, UK)

Support: The symposium is kindly supported by the International Society of Biomechanics (ISB) and by the De Luca Foundation.

9^th Symposium on Motor Control in Biomechanics at ACSM 2019

We hosted our 9^th Symposium on Motor Control in Biomechanics on May 28^th, 2019 in conjunction with the 66^th Annual Meeting of the American College of Sport Medicine (ACSM).

The topic of the symposium was “The Integration of Motor Control into the Rehabilitation and Prevention of Sports Injuries”, and it featured internationally distinguished researchers in the field of Motor Control and Biomechanics, including:

• Dr. Robin Queen (Virginia Tech, USA) “Using biofeedback to reduce second ACL injury risk”
• Dr. Scott Landry (Acadia University, Canada) “Biomechanical and neuromuscular analyses of young athletes”
• Dr. Cara Lewis (Boston University, USA) “Hip morphology and movement patterns: rethinking hip pain in athletes”
• Dr. Daniel Cobian (University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA) “Abnormal quadriceps activation patterns and lower extremity biomechanics in elite collegiate athletes post-ACL reconstruction”
• Dr. Deanna Gates (University of Michigan, USA) “The influence of muscle fatigue and pain on multi-joint movements”
• Mrs. Alessandra Matias (University of Sao Paulo, Brazil) “Not all forefoot striking is equal”.

Support: The symposium was kindly supported by the International Society of Biomechanics (ISB) and by the De Luca Foundation.

Winner of the 2^nd ISB-Sponsored Motor Control Group Student Award

Stay tuned for our 2020 events!

Sincerely,
ISB Working Group in Motor Control

Comparative Neuromuscular Biomechanics Seed Group

The Comparative Neuromuscular Biomechanics Seed Group (CNB) is excited to announce two upcoming symposia to be held at ISB/ASB 2019.

The inaugural CNB symposium “Comparative biomechanics across organizational scales (tissues to whole body dynamics)” will be held at the ISB/ASB 2019 congress on Saturday August 3^rd.  (Updated speaker list below)

Speakers:

• Monica Daley (Royal Vet. College, UK) & Craig McGowan (University of Idaho) Chairs
• Mariana Kersh (University of Illinois)
• Spencer Lake (Washington University, St Louis, USA)
• Natalie Holt (Northern Arizona University, USA)
• Manny Azizi (UC Irvine)
• Heather More (Simon Fraser University, Canada)
• Kiisa Nishikawa (NAU, USA)
• Greg Sawicki (Georgia Tech, USA)
• Stacey Shield (U. Cape Town, South Africa)
• Christian Hubicki (Florida State U, USA)

A second CNB-affiliated symposium “Using musculoskeletal modelling in comparative biomechanics” will be held at the ISB-ASB 2019 congress on Thursday August 1^st. (Updated speaker list below)

Speakers:

• Christofer Clemente (University of the Sunshine Coast, Australia) and Taylor Dick (University of Queensland, Australia),Chairs
• Jonas Rubenson (Penn State, USA)
• Friedl De Groote (KU Leuven, Belgium)
• James Charles (University of Liverpool, UK)
• Ashley Heers (Cal State, USA)

CNB Business Meeting at ISB/ASB 2019:

The CNB is hosting a business meeting on Thursday August 1st at 6pm; Room Glen 205.  Anyone interested in learning more about the CNB group is encouraged to attend.

The CNB will be seeking nominations for elected board positions later in 2019.

For information regarding the CNB, including information on symposia, the CNB board, membership and contact information please visit:  https://sites.psu.edu/cnbgroup/

Looking forward to seeing you in Calgary!

A Word from our Sponsors - Tekscan

Tekscan is a manufacturer of pressure and force systems used for a wide variety of lower extremity biomechanics assessments. Our systems range from tools to analyze gait, balance and seating/positioning to technology for joint analysis and more! Tekscan technology has been validated by leading researchers worldwide with thousands of publications ranging from studies evaluating the effect of gait training in elderly patients to the effects of energy drinks on postural stability.  To learn more or view our bibliography visit, www.tekscan.com/biomechanics

Visit us at the ISB in Calgary!

Stop by the Tekscan booth #305 at ISB/ASB to learn more about our versatile gait analysis solutions. Try out our award winning Strideway to see for yourself what this unique technology can do for your research!

Don’t miss the podium session at ISB/ASB on August 2 at 9 AM in room Macleod-E4, ‘The Application of a Neural Network to Improve Plantar Pressure Mapping Accuracy’, by Kenneth Brent Smale, PhD, and Ryan Graham, PhD, which will explore the accuracy of Tekscan’s F-Scan System compared to a force plate. 

Does your gait analysis technology provide you with a complete picture? Are you looking other ways to capture unique gait insights? Check out our new eBook ‘Data to Complete Your Gait Analysis’ to see research examples where pressure measurement technology provided a unique perspective for their project. Read Now!