Category: Conference

RMASB 2022 Conference

After a 2-year hiatus from in-person conference participation, we made the trek across Wyoming to attend and participate in the 12th Annual RMASB Meeting (Rocky Mountain ASB (google.com). We caught up with old friends and connected with new people to form exciting collaborations.

Our E&S students were well represented:

Nick Gomez: Upper-extremity kinematics and interlimb coordination of persons with Parkinson’s disease are sensitive to the environment

Jamie Herridge: Leveraging Prehistoric Footwear to Reconstruct Ancient Running Biomechanics

Katie Allen: Quantifying Upper Body Postures with a Motion Sensing Garment

RMASB 2021 – Virtual Conference

The 11th Annual Rocky Mountain American Society of Biomechanics (RMASB) regional meeting has gone virtual! Please join us on April 2, 2021 for a day of presentations, posters and socializing via Zoom and Spatial Chat. More details can be found here: https://sites.google.com/site/asbrockymountain/home

We are thrilled to have two keynote speakers, 5 podium sessions and 2 poster sessions. Topic areas include Concussion and Reaction Time, Upper and Lower Limb Biomechanics, Musculoskeletal Modeling, Sensorimotor Control, Sports, and much more.

Registration is Free!
Meeting Date: April 2, 2021

We look forward to your contributions and participation in Virtual RMASB 2021.

Sincerely,

RMASB 2021 Organizing committee
Neha Lodha
Philippe Malcolm
Andrew Merryweather

Dorien Butter ASB 2020 Presentation

Despite decades of research into patient falls, falls and the injuries incurred continue to be a serious threat to patient safety. Fall rates continue to be unacceptably high. The purpose of this project is to increase the safety of a hospital room for patient mobility through patient-centric design.

This survey is a starting point to understanding and quantifying the effect object characteristics have on a patient’s safety and stability when used for support. Based on the results of the survey, the next step of my research is to quantify the relationship between height, resistance to movement, and type of grasp and how those three characteristics work together to provide stability to a frail individual. This will be done in a laboratory setting using motion capture.

Here is a 3-minute supplemental video explaining the results of the survey.

Do you think you qualify to take the survey? Read the consent document here, and follow this link to the survey: https://redcap01.brisc.utah.edu/ccts/redcap/surveys/?s=LKR3LEEPXW

DorienButter_ASB2020_Poster

Ergonomics and Safety Represented at IMECE 2019

Prof. Merryweather and members of the Ergonomics and Safety Lab had a big presence at IMCEC 2019 (https://event.asme.org/IMECE). Nearly 3000 attendees from around the world convened in Salt Lake to present research, network and associate with one another during the 4 day event. E&S presenters were: Dorien Butter, Sarvenaz Chaeibakhsh, Mohammad Homoyounpour, Jon Mortensen,  and Dorothy Taylor. Research projects presented were supported by AHRQ, NIOSH and NSF.

Presentation Titles

The Natural Sit-to-Stand-Walk of the Frail Technical Paper Publication. IMECE2019-11889 Dorothy Taylor, Andrew Merryweather, Jan Morse, Bob Wong, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, U T, United States

Subject-Specific Models of the Head and Neck for Reproducing Experimentally Obtained Head Impacts in OpenSim Technical Paper Publication. IMECE2019-11932 Jonathan Douglas Mortensen, Mohammad Homayounpour, Andrew Merryweather, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, United States

The Effect of Wearing Insoles on Lower Extremity Gait Kinematics of Adults During Activities of Daily Living Poster Presentation. IMECE2019-13839 Dorien Butter, Sarvenaz Chaeibakhsh, Andrew Merryweather, K. Bo Foreman, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, United States

NORA 2019

The University of Utah’s Rocky Mountain Center for Occupational and Environmental Health (RMCOEH) and Department of Mechanical Engineering will be holding the 17th Annual Regional National Occupational Research Agenda (NORA) Young/New Investigators Symposium.  

The goal of this conference is to assemble interested students (undergraduate and graduate) and young/new investigators from the region, as well as other interested parties, in a forum where NORA-related research can be presented and discussed in a non-threatening atmosphere. It is expected that, for many of the students who choose to present, it will be the first formal presentation of their research.

The NORA 2019 Conference will be held at the Officer’s Club 150 Fort Douglas Blvd, Salt Lake City, UT 84113 on April 18th & 19th.  Please visit the NORA 2019 website for the latest information.

There will be two special presentations this year at NORA.  The Opening Keynote Speaker is Sarah A. Felknor, DrPH.  Her talk is entitled Expanded Focus for Occupational Safety and Health and will start at 8:30 AM on April 18th.

Image result for sarah felknor cdc

Dr. Felknor

At 8:30 AM on April 19th, the Dr. Paul S. Richards Endowed Distinguished Visiting Lectureship in Occupational Medicine will present Donald C. Sinclair, II, J.D., who will speak on The Role of the Epidemiological and Exposure Sciences in the Resolution of Medicolegal Disputes.

Mr. Sinclair, Esq.

The Richards Lecture is FREE and open to the public, however, registration is required. To register for this lecture ONLY, register for attendance with the “Richards Lecture Only” option at the NORA 2019 website.

Moriah Henning at the Utah Conference for Undergraduate Research

Moriah Henning, a senior in Mechanical Engineering, presented a poster at the Utah Conference for Undergraduate Research (UCUR) at Weber State on Friday, February 22nd. The conference is modeled after the National Conference for Undergraduate Research and invites undergraduates from all disciplines to apply. It provides a great opportunity for undergraduates to share their work in a scholarly setting to other students, faculty, and community members from all over Utah.

Moriah completed two semesters of research under Dr. Andrew Merryweather on characterizing the open-source, 3D-printed, InMoov robotic hand as part of the the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP). She analyzed the hand’s limitations and abilities through computer and physical testing to better understand improvements that could be made to the design. Presenting at UCUR gave her the opportunity to meet other undergraduate students doing research and to share her own research outside the lab.

Jon Mortensen at CHASE 2018

Mr. Jon Mortensen traveled to Washington D.C. Sept. 26-28 for the Third IEEE/ACM Conference on Connected Health: Applications, Systems, and Engineering. He presented work aimed at improving simple ergonomic risk evaluation tools (such as RULA) through the use of OpenSim musculoskeletal models. OpenSim models output biomechanical data that may offer higher resolution on injury risk than previous tools.

Mr. Amir Yazdani (Ph.D. 2019) Presents at the 7th CDC/NIOSH NOIRS (National Occupational Injury Research Symposium), Morgantown, WV

The 7th National Occupational Injury Research Symposium – NOIRS – was held October 16-18, 2018 in Morgantown, WV.

NOIRS is the only national forum focused on the presentation of occupational injury research. The Symposium brings together researchers, academicians, labor union representatives, safety professionals, industry leaders, and students from multiple disciplines and fields to advance the public health mission of keep workers safe. This year’s theme was: Advancing Worker Safety in the 21st Century Through Research and Practice.

Senior Design Team Invited to Dublin, Ireland!

Advised by mechanical engineering assistant professor Andrew Merryweather, the senior design project Wearable Tremor Damping Device, was selected as one of the six finalists for the 2018 Undergraduate Design Project Competition in Rehabilitation and Assistive Devices at the 8th World Congress of Biomechanics July 8-12, 2018, Dublin, Ireland. There the team was given the opportunity to present their design at a special podium presentation.

Ms. Mikaela Hayward and Prof. Andrew S. Merryweather are pictured above in Dublin.  The entire team is pictured below and from, left to right, are MEEN BS 2018 Seniors Kory Cross, Irsyad Badri, Mikaela Hayward, Quincy Stevens, and Hyrum Peterson.

https://mech.utah.edu/senior-design-team-invited-to-dublin-ireland/