Prosthetics

Paul Slaughter knew early on he wanted an engineering degree that would help amputees, even writing in a high school career essay about designing prosthetics to assist athletes. The Vanderbilt Mechanical Engineering graduate student recently got that opportunity when he designed a prosthetic leg for Army veteran Kelly Elmlinger… Read More

Andrés Martínez strode briskly on the treadmill, staring straight ahead and counting backwards by seven from 898, a trick to keep his brain from anticipating the literal stumbling block heading his way: a compact 35 pounds of steel specifically designed to make him fall. Special goggles kept him from looking… Read More

Design Day 2019 took students and visitors to Mars, a diving depth of 300 feet and a potential green oasis above a stretch of Interstate 65. Dean Phillipe Fauchet (left) and Assistant Dean of Design Tom Withrow commend students, advisers, faculty and sponsors for two semesters of hard work. Other… Read More

In the spring of 2017, Vanderbilt’s Sara Tsai suffered an Achilles injury during a routine workout. The injury would ultimately require surgery and force Tsai, a mechanical engineering senior, to miss her entire junior season as a distance runner at Vanderbilt. Tsai said that setback challenged her both emotionally and… Read More

Mechanical engineering PhD student Erik Lamers, center, demonstrates a low-profile ‘super-suit’ that helps prevent back pain by offloading stress on the lower back – one of a dozen demonstrations set up for National Biomechanics Day. For the second year, the School of Engineering’s biomechanics and assistive rehabilitation labs have received… Read More

It’s virtually impossible to know Mike Sasser’s left leg is a prosthetic one – after a decade of practice, he moves surely and swiftly through his busy days as a consultant and father. But when Sasser encounters uneven ground or a flight of stairs, he focuses very hard on balance,… Read More

Garrett Spiegel, BE’10, right, and Jeff Huber, left, cofounded Standard Cyborg, a San Francisco company whose software is used across the world to enable easier design of orthotics and prosthetics. When it began, Standard Cyborg set out to make design of custom-fabricated orthotics and prosthetics easier and quicker – especially in… Read More

Karl Zelik, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering, has received top awards from the International Society of Biomechanics and the American Society of Biomechanics for early career research. Both awards recognize Zelik’s body of work on improving and unifying the understanding of human locomotion, and translating this understanding to advances… Read More

Karl Zelik, assistant professor of mechanical and biomedical engineering and physical medicine and rehabilitation, right, discusses research with graduate students. (Vanderbilt University) Assistant Professor Karl Zelik is one of three National Institutes of Health K12 Career Development Award winners for 2016 who will be participating in the… Read More

Karl Zelik (Vanderbilt University) In his effort to develop better prosthetic limbs, Karl Zelik had to start with deciphering more clearly how muscles function in walking. His path not only led to a better way of quantifying human locomotion, but also to the discovery that muscles around… Read More