News
Welcome Dr. Long!
Dr. Ting Long has joined us as a postdoctoral researcher! Dr. Long completed their PhD in Biomedical Engineering from University of Auckland. Welcome Dr. Long!
Prof. Justin Fernandez visited our lab
Prof. Justin Fernandez from University of Auckland visited with us and shared his research on wearable sensors for enhancing rehabilitation after orthopaedic surgeries.
Welcome Doug Mitchell!
Doug joins us as our new lab manager! He completed his undergraduate training clinical physiology from Central Washington University and Master of Science in Exercise Physiology from San Diego State University. Welcome Doug!
Dr. Margarita Alegria visited our lab
Dr. Margarita Alegria from Mass General Hospital and Harvard Medical School spoke to the PhD students the importance of diversity in academic medicine. It was wonderful to host her and finally meet her in person after collaborating for a few years!
New publication in Clinical Biomechanics
In our most recent study in Clinical Biomechanics , we examined the associations between muscle activation and pain during a step-up movement in people with knee OA.
We report that larger quadriceps activation during the movement was related to lower pain during the same movement. We also report that larger activation was related to better overall physical function.
First Author: Ehyun Kim, MS
Read more here (free access to full article until Dec 15 2025): https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0268003325002566?dgcid=author
Dr. Brad Manor visited our lab
It was a pleasure to briefly host Dr. Brad Manor from Marcus Institute of Aging Research and Harvard Medical School in the lab!
Dr. Manor spoke at the Rehabilitation Science Seminar and shared his fascinating work with non-invasive brain stimulation to improve balance and mobility in aging.
Aaron Smith presented at the Fall 2025 UROP Symposium
Aaron Smith presented his summer research at the recent UROP symposium. Aaron is developing a deep learning model to estimate knee kinematics and kinetics from IMU data.
Dinner and Red Sox game!
Quick lab outing for dinner and a Red Sox game to celebrate all the recent successes, start of a new semester, new team members, and farewell to Shogo Okada!
New publication in PLOS One
Dr. Soyoung Lee published this study from her dissertation project.
We concurrently assessed pre-frontal cortex (PFC) activity and gait using wearable functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) and inertial sensing systems during single- and dual-task walking in people with painful knee osteoarthritis (n=48).
We identified three key findings
1. PFC activation was similar between single- and dual-task walking
2. Gait was worse during dual- vs. single-task walking but cognitive performance was similar between dual-task walking and a cognitive task
3. Greater PFC activation during dual-task walking was related to better gait performance.
Our findings suggest that people with knee OA may not have sufficient brain reserve to increase prefrontal cortex function and maintain gait performance when challenged with dual-task conditions during walking. This may increase their risk of falls while walking in everyday life and interventions to improve dual-task walking performance may be considered in future studies.
Read open-access here:https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0331070
Welcome Dina!
Dilinazi Duolikun (Dina) has been working with us as a graduate researcher during her Masters in Human Physiology program. She is now joining us full time as a researcher! Welcome back Dina!
