Speakers

Dr. Kenton R. Kaufman is the W. Hall Wendel Jr Musculoskeletal Research Professor, Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Professor of Orthopedics, Director of the Motion Analysis Laboratory, and Consultant in the Departments of Orthopedic Surgery, Physiology and Biomedical Engineering at Mayo Clinic. He is a registered professional engineer.  His primary research focus is musculoskeletal rehabilitation science.

Dr. Kaufman currently serves on the Medical Advisory Board for the American Orthotic and Prosthetic Association and the Research Advisory Board for Shriners Hospitals for Children. He is a member of Gait and Posture, and Prosthetic and Orthotics International editorial boards. He has served on the National Advisory Board for Medical Rehabilitation Research and the National Advisory Council for Nursing Research at the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Kaufman is a Past President of the American Society of Biomechanics.  He is a founding member and Past President of the Gait and Clinical Movement Analysis Society.  He is a Fellow in the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, American Society of Biomechanics, American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Orthopedic Research Society, and International Society of Biomechanics.

Dr. Kaufman has received numerous awards and honors for his work, including the American Society of Biomechanics (ASB) Borelli Award for outstanding career accomplishment, ASB Goel Award for Translational Biomechanics, ASB Young Investigator Award, Excellence in Research Award and the O’Donoghue Sports Injury Research Award from the American Orthopedic Society for Sports Medicine, Clinical Research Award from the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons, Research Award from the American Academy of Orthotists and Prosthetists, three Best Scientific Paper Awards from the Gait and Clinical Movement Analysis Society, Frank Stinchfield Award from The Hip Society, John Charnley Award from The Hip Society, John Insall Award from The Knee Society, Thranhardt Award from the American Orthotic and Prosthetic Association, and Clinical Biomechanics Award from the International Society of Biomechanics. 

Scott Delp, Ph.D., is the James H. Clark Professor of Bioengineering, Mechanical Engineering, and Orthopaedic Surgery at Stanford University. He is the Founding Chairman of the Department of Bioengineering at Stanford and Director of the Wu Tsai Human Performance Alliance, which aims to transform human health through the science of peak performance. Scott is also the Director of the RESTORE Center, a NIH national center focused on measuring real world rehabilitation outcomes and Director of the Mobilize Center, a NIH National Center of Excellence focused on Big Data and Mobile Health. Scott’s laboratory develops technologies to advance movement science and human health. Software tools created in his lab, including OpenSim and Simtk.org, have become the basis of an international collaboration involving thousands of scientists who exchange simulations of human movement. He has published over 250 research articles and has recently released a book from MIT Press entitled Biomechanics of Movement: The Science of Sports, Robotics, and Rehabilitation. Professor Delp has co-founded six health technology companies and is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering.

Professor André Seyfarth is head of the Locomotion Laboratory in the Institute of Sport Science and member of the Centre for Cognitive Science at the Technical University of Darmstadt. He received the Vordiplom degree in physics in 1991, the Diploma degree in physics and biomechanics in 1995, and the Ph.D. degree in biomechanics in 2000 from Friedrich-Schiller Universität Jena, Jena, Germany. In the early stages of his career, he was affiliated with universities in the United States (LegLab at MIT in Boston) and Switzerland (ParaLab at the university hospital Balgrist in Zurich). His research interests include sport science especially on running, human and animal biomechanics and wearable robotics.

Franco Simini is Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Medical Informatics, Universidad de la República, Uruguay, where he founded in 1985 the Núcleo de Ingeniería Biomédica, an academic Department of the Medical and Engineering Faculties. Active in Technology Transfer, Prof. Simini directed 130 theses, created 10 courses, wrote 300 publications, 4 books and holds 3 patents. Biomechanics, impedance tomography as well as abdominal pressure reduction are among his research areas. Founder of the University´s Espacio Interdisciplinario, IEEE Senior Member Prof. Simini is active in University government and outreach, chaired congresses CLABIO2015/SABI2020 and is organizing 3DAHM 2024 to be held in Uruguay.

The long-term goal of Dr. Sheehan’s work focusses on optimizing the diagnosis, treatment, and evaluation of patients suffering from specific musculoskeletal impairments. She has developed novel, groundbreaking tools (VFA toolbox) for the accurate, in vivo quantification of musculoskeletal static and dynamic architecture. This began with her PhD thesis in which she developed, validated, and implemented the first and only tool for the non-invasive 3D evaluation of in vivo musculoskeletal kinematics, cine-phase contrast MRI (or dynamic MRI). Throughout her career she has continuously broadened the scope of her research interests through the development and validation of additional tools (e.g., automatic segmentation for the generation of bone models), mentorship, and collaboration. She had applied the ever-expanding VFA toolbox to enhance our knowledge of both normative and altered musculoskeletal function, with a concentration on the ankle, knee and hip; focusing on patellofemoral pain syndrome, ACL-injury, cerebral palsy, and obstetrical brachial plexus palsy.

Sibylle Thies obtained her PhD in Biomedical Engineering, Biomechanics from the University of Michigan, USA, in 2004. She is an expert in experimental biomechanics and measurement of human movement. Sibylle spent six years as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Salford, UK. First she worked on the European Framework VI project Healthy AIMS, supporting the design of a movement pattern recognition algorithm to trigger functional electrical muscle stimulation to assist stroke patients with hand opening. Through this she gained extensive experience in use of inertial sensors and signal processing. Next she worked on the EPSRC-funded IDGO TOO project concerned with Inclusive Design for Getting Outdoors, for which she led the evaluation of older adults when crossing the road and investigated the effect of tactile pavement on their gait and stability. Since 2011 Sibylle has been working at the University of Salford as permanent staff on a range of projects concerned with stability and falls of older adults, and since 2012 is leading the research focused on understanding the biomechanics of walking aid users. She is a board member of the International Society of Biomechanics 3D Analysis of Human Movement group and excited to share her journey regarding walking aids: considering that walking aids have remained traditional in design for decades, especially those used indoors, her team have now created a new frontier where the traditional design processes meet innovative 3D measurement of human movement, hence Sibylle is excited to give a keynote in the true spirit of the conference theme.

Dr. Makiko Kouchi is an Emeritus researcher of National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Japan. She studied physical anthropology and received master’s degree and doctor’s degree from the University of Tokyo. Her research interests include variations in human body due to growth, secular change, and movement, as well as modeling, analysis and application of 3D human body shape data. She received awards including AIST Director-General’s Award (2000), and Basic Research Award in International Society of Biomechanics, 5th Footwear Symposium (2001). She is also related to 1D and 3D anthropometric researches in Japan including the quantification of measurement errors and validation protocol of 3D scanners. She is an expert of ISO/TC159/SC3/WG1 and project leader of ISO 20682-2 and ISO/TR 7250-2.

Dr. Hiroaki Hobara is an Associate Professor at the Tokyo University of Science, Tokyo,  Japan. He received his Ph.D. in Human Sciences from Waseda University in 2008 and completed his postdoctoral training at the National Rehabilitation Center for Persons with Disabilities (Japan), and the University of Maryland, College Park (USA). After joining the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Dr. Hobara received the Promising Young Scientist Award from the International Society of Biomechanics (ISB) in 2013. His research area stands on human bipedal locomotion, especially the biomechanics of amputee locomotion and spring-like leg behavior in human bouncing gaits.