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David Winter Young Investigator Award (podium):

aw1     Quinn Yetman

“Foot and Ankle Kinetics are Coupled During Propulsion for Walking and Running”             

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Queen's University          

Quinn Yetman is a 3rd year graduate student in Mechanical Engineering at Queen’s University in the Skeletal Observation Lab supervised by Dr. Michael Rainbow. He upgraded directly from my MASc to the PhD program in January 2023 after doing his undergraduate degree in Applied Mathematics and Engineering at Queen’s University. His research uses biplanar videoradiography and computational modeling to look at how the foot and ankle work together during locomotion. He is interested in understanding fundamental foot mechanics to improve performance in running and footwear design as well as reduce the incidence of musculoskeletal injuries in the general population.

 

David Winter Young Investigator Award (poster)             

aw2.jpg     Kavya Katugam-Dechene

“Energetics, Mechanics, and Muscle: Locomotor Adaptations to Chronic Limb Loading during Development”   

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Penn State University                                   

Kavya Katugam-Dechene recently successfully defended her PhD in the Muscle Function & Locomotion Lab at Penn State under the mentorship of Dr. Jonas Rubenson. Her dissertation investigated the effects of exercise during growth on musculoskeletal health, specifically focusing on locomotor energetics, gait mechanics, and muscle architecture, using guinea fowl as a comparative model species. This August, she will be starting as a postdoctoral researcher at the Concord Field Station under the mentorship of Dr. Nicolai Konow at UMass Lowell and Dr. Andy Biewener at Harvard University, with projects focusing on muscle physiology. She will also be working in industry as a Biomechanics Research Engineer at a sports technology startup based in Cambridge, MA, with work focusing on research and development on athletic performance evaluation.

 

Clinical Biomechanics Award     

aw3.jpg    Francesco Cenni

“Medial Gastrocnemius Muscle and Achilles Tendon Interplay during Gait in Cerebral Palsy”               

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University of Jyväskylä                  

Francesco Cenni is a research fellow (Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships, European Union’s programme) at the Faculty of Sport and Health Sciences, University of Jyväskylä (Finland). He is originally from Rimini (Italy). Francesco is a biomedical engineer with a strong focus on clinical applications. He worked several years at university hospitals in Bologna (Italy) and Leuven (Belgium). In Leuven (KU Leuven), Francesco received his PhD degree in January 2018. His main expertise is in medical imaging (by using 3D ultrasonography for musculoskeletal applications) and gait analysis. Francesco enjoys building up large and passionate research networks and he is also involved in promoting visibilities and opportunities for young researchers. He is finalizing his project on motor and sensory systems in children with cerebral palsy and he is keen to explore more about muscle and tendon remodeling in neuromuscular diseases.

 

ISB World Athletics Award for Biomechanics      

aw_4.png   Toshihide Fujimori

"Performance Strategy in the High Jump varies between Individuals: Mechanical Work Exertion vs Energy Conversion"

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University of Tsukuba     

Toshihide Fujimori is a PhD student at the University of Tsukuba, specializing in the field of sports biomechanics. His research focuses on the biomechanics of dynamic locomotion, particularly delving into the mechanics of spring-like body movements and muscle-tendon dynamics in jumping and sprinting. Through his studies, he aims to unravel the precise mechanics that underlie these movements, contributing valuable insights to optimise athletic performance and prevent injuries.

 

Promising Scientist Award          

aw_5.jpg     Anne Koelewijn 

“Exploring Energy Optimality of Human Movement through Simulation”

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Fredrich-Alexander University                   

Since 2019, Anne Koelewijn is a junior professor in the Machine Learning and Data Analytics Lab at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg in Erlangen, Germany. Here, she leads the Biomechanical Motion Analysis and Creation (BioMAC) group. Her group researches human movement and control using optimal control simulations, machine learning, and experiments inside and outside of the lab. Their aim is to help people reach their best possible performance, both people with a disability or disease affecting their mobility and athletes. Anne holds a bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering (2011) and a master’s degree in mechanical engineering (2014) from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. She received a Doctor of Engineering degree in mechanical engineering from Cleveland State University (Cleveland, OH, USA) in 2018 for her research on predictive simulations and their application in understanding gait of persons with a transtibial amputation. Next, she was a postdoc in the Biorobotics Laboratory at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland, where she researched neuromuscular control of standing and walking, before moving to her current position. When she is not busy with research, you can often find Anne playing or refereeing lacrosse, cooking and baking, or hiking.

 

Carlo De Luca Emerging Scientist             

screenshot 2023 09 08 142126    Marco Romanato

“A translational electromyography-informed approach to characterize motor control abnormalities in Parkisnon's disease”                    

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Institut du Cerveau         

Marco Romanato got his Master of Science degree in Bioengineering (2018) at University of Padova (Italy). He has been a doctoral student (2019 - 2022) of the XXXV cycle at the PhD School on Information Engineering, curricula of Bioengineering, at the University of Padova (Italy) and defended his thesis (2023) on the characterization of motor control in Parkinson’s disease through translational electromyography-informed modeling approaches. His PhD was exploited in collaboration with the Fresco Parkinson Center in Villa Margherita in Vicenza (Italy). During his studies he has participated three times to Erasmus+ mobility programs: in 2017 at the Reykjavik University in Reykjavik (Iceland), in 2018 at the University of Twente in Enschede (The Netherlands), and in 2022 at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm (Sweden). In 2022 he won a 2-years research fellowship grant (42.966 €) at the Department of Information Engineering at the University of Padova (Italy). Currently (2023), he is a post-doctoral researcher at the Paris Brain Institute, within the experimental neurosurgery team at the Hôpital Pitié-Salpêtrière (France). His main research activity focuses on the neurophysiological and biomechanical alterations in locomotion in people with neurodegenerative disorders. He is involved in the instrumental evaluation of different interventions (i.e., physical rehabilitation, pharmacological treatment, deep brain stimulation) in people with Parkinson’s disease, the use of neuro-musculoskeletal modelling techniques to track disease progression, and the investigation of sub-corticomuscular correlates during gait. He is first author and co-author of conference abstracts and full-length articles in international conference proceedings and peer-reviewed journals concerning gait and posture abnormalities in Parkinson’s disease.

Jacquelin Perry Emerging Female Scientist Award           

aw_7.jpg      Janet Zhang-Lea

“One Size Cannot Fit All: Variations in Running Biomechanics Associate with Runner’s Demographics, Running Experience, and DIsability Level  “            

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Gonzaga University         

One Size Cannot Fit All: Variations in Running Biomechanics Associate with Runner’s Demographics, Running Experience, and DIsability Level                

Dr. Janet H. Zhang-Lea is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Human Physiology at Gonzaga University. Prior to joining Gonzaga in 2022, she earned her PhD degree from the Hong Kong Polytechnic University under the supervision of Dr. Roy Cheung, and joined Dr. Alena Grabowski’s Applied Biomechanics Lab at University of Colorado Boulder as a post-doctoral researcher. Her research is focused on using a biomechanics-based approach to understand motor control and motor learning in human locomotion, and to further utilize motor learning as a method for injury prevention and wearable device development in rehabilitation sciences.

 

ISB Student Travel Grant Awardees

Anja-Verena Berling

University of Queensland, Australia

Yichen Huang

University of Melbourne, Australia

Olivia Bruce

University of Calgary, Canada

Quinn Yetman

Queens University, Canada

Ze Gong

Northwestern Polytechnical University, China

Adam Kositsky

University of Eastern Finland, Finland

Raad Khair

University of Jyvaskyla, Finland

Tat Nhat Minh Truong

KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden

Taniel Winner

Emory University, USA

Nicole Jones

University of Southern Queensland, Australia

Danyon Stitt

University of Canterbury, New Zealand

Elisa Romero Avila

RWTH Aachen University, Germany

Guido Mirko Geusebroek

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands

Kavya Katugam-Dechene

Penn State, USA

Allesia Funaro

KU Leuven, Belgium

Mauricio Delgado

University of Calgary, Canada

ISB Postdoc Travel Grant

Seongwon Han

University of Meunster, Germany

Barbara Postolka

KU Leuven, Belgium

Fransiska Bossuyt

Swiss Paraplegic Research Switzerland, Switzerland

Deepak Ravi

ETH Switzerland

Kristen Jakubowski

Emory University and Georgia Tech, USA

Luca Buzzatti

Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium

EDC Students Travel Grant

Samrat Sagar

IIT Bombay, India

Jordan Leondiris

University of Cape Town, South Africa

Fatemeh Jalali

University of Tehran, Iran.

 

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