CLEAR.
CLOSED LOOP ENGINEERING for ADVANCED REHABILITATION
Research Emphases
CLEAR Research Community
 Josh Alexander, MDChair, Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation |  John Baratta, MD, MBAClinical Assistant Professor Medical Director, Stroke Rehabilitation |  Troy Blackburn, Ph.D.Neuromuscular Research Laboratory |  Alper Bozkurt, Ph.D.iBionics - Integrated Bionic Microsystems Lab |  Jessica Cassidy, PT, DPT, PhDAssistant Professor, Department of Physical Therapy |
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 Karen Chen, Ph.D.Assistant Professor, Edward P. Fitts Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering |  Jacque Cole Ph.D.Orthopaedic Mechanobiology Laboratory |  Jing Feng, Ph.D.Associate Professor, Department of Psychology |  Scott Ferguson, Ph.D.System Design Optimization (SDO) Laboratory |  William Filer, MDClinical Assistant Professor Director, Residency Program |
 Matt Fisher, Ph.D.Translational Orthopaedic Research Laboratory |  Jason Franz, Ph.D.Applied Biomechanics Laboratory |  Henry Fuchs, Ph.D.FEDERICO GIL DISTINGUISHED PROFESSOR |  Debby Givens, PT, DPT, PhDDirector and Professor Division of Physical Therapy Department of Allied Health Sciences UNC-CH |  Xiaogang Hu, Ph.D.Neuromechanics Laboratory |
 Helen Huang, Ph.D.Neuromuscular Rehabilitation Engineering Laboratory |  Derek Kamper, Ph.D.Hand Rehabilitation Laboratory |  Michael Y. Lee, M.D., M.H.A., C.P.E.Senior Faculty Physical Medicine & Rehab Baylor College of Medicine |  Mike Lewek, Ph.D.Neurogait Research laboratory |  Ming Liu, Ph.D.Research Assistant Professor |
 Edgar Lobaton, Ph.D.Active Robotic Sensing (ARoS) Laboratory |  Karen McCulloch, PT, PhD, NCSProfessor Board Certified Clinical Specialist in Neurologic Physical Therapy Division of Physical Therapy Department of Allied Health Sciences |  Vicki Mercer, PT, Ph.D.Associate Professor Director, Human Movement Science PhD Program Division of Physical Therapy Department of Allied Health Sciences UNC-CH |  Blaise Morrison, PhD, CRC, PCAssistant Professor |  Zeljko Pantic, Ph.D.Associate Professor Electrical and Computer Engineering |
 Brian Pietrosimone, PhD, ATCNeuromuscular Research Laboratory |  Kate Saul, Ph.D.Movement Biomechanics Laboratory |  Nitin Sharma, Ph.D.Associate Professor, Neuromuscular Control & Robotics |  Jonathan Stallrich, Ph.D.Associate Professor, NCSU Department of Statistics |  Louise Thoma, PT, DPT, PhDAssistant Professor. Division of Physical Therapy Department of Allied Health Sciences |
 Erik Wikstrom, PhD, ATC, LATAssistant Professor, Athletic Training Katherine Smith Gunter Fellow Co-Director, Sport Medicine Research Laboratory Department of Exercise and Sport Science UNC-CH |
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Upcoming Seminars
Professor
Departments of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation, Biomedical Engineering, and Mechanical Engineering
Northwestern University
Additional Rehab Related Seminars, Talks & Meetings
Rehab Labs Research Meetings
When: 1st Friday of the Month from 9:30am — 10:30am
Dates: See calendar
Locations: Engineering Building III, Room 4142 & Mary Ellen Jones, Room 9010A
About: The seminar series serves as an opportunity for students to present research progress and obtain feedback from faculty and their peers. For faculty/ postdocs, the meetings serve as a platform to share grant submission ideas and solicit feedback.
Recent Presenters
Joint Rehab/Regen Monthly Meeting
June 2, 2023
Peter Shull, Ph.D., Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
Topic: Wearable Systems for Biomedical Applications and Human Computer Interaction
Dr. Shull's talk presented an overview of various research topics related to wearable systems including wrist-worn hand gesture recognition, wearable gait and posture assessment and training, soft wearable haptics, and cellphone AR rehabilitation.
Joint Rehab/Regen Monthly Meeting
March 10, 2023
He (Helen) Huang, Ph.D., Jackson Family Distinguished Professor in the joint Department of Biomedical Engineering at NC State University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Topic: Neural Engineering in Motor Rehabilitation
Dr. Huang's talk focused on her sabbatical leave in the spring of 2022, and she discussed several interesting research projects that she observed and potential collaborations that can be built between CLEAR and these colleagues in neural engineering in the future.
Joint Rehab/Regen Monthly Meeting
February 03, 2023
Dr. Joachim Hermsdörfer, Professor, Technical University of Munich
Topic: Grip force control in healthy persons and patients with brain damage
Joint Rehab/Regen Monthly Meeting
December 02, 2022
Dr. Katie Poggensee, Postdoctoral Researcher at T.U. Delft
Topic: Altering balance with a lightweight gyroscopic robotic actuator
Dr. Poggensee's talk described a wearable robotic backpack designed to assist (or perturb) balance. Prior versions of the device have improved standing and walking balance in healthy and post-stroke populations, intentionally perturbed the trunk during standing, and altered swing leg kinematics during walking. The newest iteration has greater functionality, in a smaller form-factor, enabling more complex conditions (e.g., assisting balance across multiple axes) and facilitating use among patient populations. She discussed the results from the previous version as well as future experiments and other uses for this novel actuator.
Joint Rehab/Regen Monthly Meeting
November 04, 2022
Dr. Yasin Dhaher, Professor, Department of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation | Orthopaedic Surgery, UT Southwestern Medical Center
Topic: Exploring the modulatory effect of spinal track activation on afferent mediated changes in motoneuron excitability in humans
Joint Rehab/Regen Monthly Meeting
October 07, 2022
Dr. James Finley, Associate Professor, Division of Biokinesiology and Physical Therapy, University of Southern California
Topic: Learning to Take Advantage of Assistance + ReproRehab
Dr. Finley's talk described his recent work on how people learn to acquire and accept assistance when adapting to walking on a split-belt treadmill. Understanding the strategies people use to modify their gait and the timescales over which this learning occurs is critical for designing effective algorithms that can provide assistance while adapting to changes in the user’s behavior.
Dr. Finley also described ongoing work with the ReproRehab Program. Through this program, his team provides training resources to help rehabilitation researchers develop the data science skills necessary to improve the reproducibility and replicability of their research. He also gave an overview of the ReproRehab curriculum, demonstrated a simple example of a reproducible analysis pipeline, and provided information for anyone interested in joining his next cohort of learners or teaching assistants.
Joint Rehab/Regen Monthly Meeting
September 02, 2022
Dr. Philipp Gulde, Chair of Human Movement Science, Department of Sport and Health Sciences, Technical University of Munich, Germany
Topic: Everyday Life in Numbers - From Lab to World
Dr. Gulde's talk introduced the clinical value of kinematic assessments, how validity can benefit from measuring outside the lab, why it is worth a try to go beyond energy expenditure, and the potential of wearables to go beyond energy expenditure by kinematic analyses outside the lab.
Joint Rehab/Regen Monthly Meeting
June 03, 2022
Dr. Sang Wook Lee, Associate Professor, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Catholic University of America
Topic: Impaired Motor Control of Bimanual Action Following Stroke: Understanding Learned Nonuse
Dr. Lee's talk presented results from a series of studies that examined functional deficits of stroke survivors affecting their arm choice and bimanual action, which could help us better understand the learned nonuse phenomenon.
Joint Rehab/Regen Monthly Meeting
May 06, 2022
Dr. Amy N. Adkins, Assistant Teaching Professor, Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering, UNC Chapel Hill & NC State University
Topic: Validation and Implementation of Multiscale Imaging Techniques for Quantifying Muscle Function and Plasticity
Dr. Adkin's talk established confidence in the ability to reliably quantify multiscale in vivo muscle structure (from the sarcomere scale to whole muscle) using minimally invasive imaging techniques and demonstrate the extent to which current approaches can detect structural adaptation in human muscle.
Joint Rehab/Regen Monthly Meeting
April 01, 2022
Dr. Roger Cornwall,
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Clinical Director, Division of Pediatric Orthopaedics
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Director, Hand and Upper Extremity Surgery Fellowship
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Professor, UC Department of Orthopedic Surgery
Topic: Shifting the Paradigm of Neuromuscular Contractures: A Little Medicine to Prevent a Lot of Surgery
Dr. Cornwall's talk told the story of how a clinical problem encountered during the surgical treatment of contractures following brachial plexus birth injury led to basic biological discoveries reshaping our understanding and potentially our treatment of neuromuscular contractures.
Joint Rehab/Regen Monthly Meeting
March 04, 2022
Student Presentations:
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Chelsea "CJ" Parker (Dr. Lewek's Lab), Subtle Variations in Metronome Cues can Alter Gait Without Conscious Awareness to Promote Implicit Learning
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Emily Eichenlaub (Dr. Franz's Lab), The Neuromechanics of Anticipated and Unanticipated Balance Perturbations During Standing and Walking
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Morgan Dalman (Dr. Saul's Lab), Computational Modeling of Glenohumeral Contact and Translation
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Miranda Ludovice (Dr. Kamper's Lab), The Impact of Finger Length and Posture on Muscle Activation Patterns Using OpenSim
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Wentao Liu (Dr. Huang's Lab), Inferring Human-Robot Performance Objectives during Locomotion using Inverse Reinforcement Learning