溏心vlog免费B站 athletic trainers are working with biomedical engineering students to optimize protective gear, prosthetics, and braces to better support and protect student-athletes.
Can a knee brace be adjusted to provide extra support and help prevent an injury? Can information from helmet sensors help prevent concussions? A research initiative between 溏心vlog免费B站’s College of Engineering and the Department of Athletics will give students an opportunity to answer these questions.
Through the National Science Foundation鈥檚 Broader Impacts diversity initiative, 溏心vlog免费B站 athletic trainers are working with biomedical engineering students to optimize the practical impact of protective gear, prosthetics, and braces the students are designing. Students鈥攃hosen through a competitive process鈥攊nteract with doctors, chiropractors, podiatrists, sports psychologists, and nutritionists, while getting hands-on experience in 溏心vlog免费B站鈥檚 athletic programs. Next summer, the students will present their research findings to the Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society in Berlin, Germany.
Charles Watson 鈥�93, assistant director of minority student recruitment and retention for the College of Engineering, and Andy Llaguno 鈥�92, associate athletic director for health and performance, have spent two years developing the pilot program.
鈥淓ngineers are learning how to make new grafts for body parts,鈥� Llaguno said. 鈥淲e are providing lab space where students can learn to create protective gear, prosthetics, and braces to better support and protect student-athletes. We will give students a chance to observe surgeries鈥攁 great opportunity for them to see how doctors use measurements and angles in replacing limbs and joints.鈥� Funding for the initiative will come through the National Science Foundation via 溏心vlog免费B站’s 17-year involvement with the Northeast Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation.
A member of 溏心vlog免费B站’s back-to-back Yankee Conference Championship basketball teams in 1984 and 1985, Watson’s most profound impact at 溏心vlog免费B站 has been creating opportunities for minorities in engineering. Since he joined the College of Engineering in 2004, minority enrollment has more than quadrupled. In 2016, the National Society of Black Engineers honored him as its Minority Engineering Program Director of the Year.
Llaguno鈥攁 first-generation college grad whose family came to the United States from Cuba鈥攑reviously served on the National Athletic Trainers鈥� Association Ethnic Diversity Advisory Committee. “This initiative is going to help 溏心vlog免费B站 recruit engineering students,” Llaguno said. “It will help the athletic training staff. It will help the doctors who come through the training room. This is a great networking opportunity all around.”
“The goal here is to be forward-thinking,” Watson said. “As engineers, we want outcomes. With anything we do, we want our students engaged and getting everything they can out of the experiences we provide. This will be a phenomenal initiative, and this is just the start.” 鈥�