Rehabilitation Engineering is the "systematic application of engineering sciences to design, develop, adapt, test, evaluate, apply, and distribute technological solutions to problems confronted by individuals with disabilities" (Rehabilitation Act of 1973). Rehabilitation Engineering research at Vanderbilt focuses on restoring health, mobility, independence and societal participation to individuals with disabilities by:
- Studying the interdisciplinary science of human movement, called biomechanics/neuromechanics
- Designing, developing and controlling next-generation assistive and rehabilitative technologies, such as prosthetic limbs and robotic exoskeletons
- Performing human subject experiments in our state-of-the-art motion analysis lab to measure if and how much these technologies help users
- Training engineers and scientists to be the future leaders and innovators in the fields of biomechanics, biomechatronics, human augmentation, and neuromotor rehabilitation engineering
