David Brodie is the Ergonomics Lead for the North America region of Cargill, Inc. In this role Brodie oversees the implementation of programs, processes, solutions, and technology across the region. In 2011, Brodie joined Cargill as a Corporate Ergonomist for their Protein Group, where he worked with fellow ergonomists and plant EHS personnel to implement an ergonomics process that resulted in >70% reduction in musculoskeletal injuries. Brodie has 25 years of experience in office, industrial, meat processing, transportation, and healthcare settings. He is co-chair of the National Ergonomics Conference and Expo, co-chair of the AExG, and has held volunteer positions as the President of the Board of Certification in Professional Ergonomics (BCPE) and Administrator of the Ergonomics Practice Specialty within the American Society of Safety Professionals (ASSP). A Certified Professional Ergonomist, David holds a Master of Science in Kinesiology.

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Dr. Gwendolyn M Bryan, PhD, received her bachelor’s in Mechanical Engineering from University of New Mexico in 2016 and her doctorate in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University for her work in the Stanford Biomechatronics Laboratory under the supervision of Dr. Steve Collins in 2021. Her dissertation focused on the design of a hip-knee-ankle exoskeleton emulator and human-subject studies using the device to optimize assistance patterns to reduce the metabolic cost of walking. Currently, Dr. Bryan is a research scientist at the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition (IHMC) where she leads a team that is developing exoskeletons for augmentation of able-bodied individuals as well as continuing IHMC’s research on exoskeletons for people with spinal cord injuries.

 

Woody Dwyer is the Director of Loss Control for AmTrust Insurance. Woody is passionate about helping businesses assess their operational risks and work towards building a safe and productive workplace. He has conducted numerous high impact presentations throughout the world on diverse topics ranging from implementing effective risk management strategies to developing effective and efficient safety and ergonomic programs. Woody has written or been featured in numerous industry and trade publications discussing workers compensation, health and safety and ergonomics.

 

Kyle Embry’s interest in robotics began at the Missouri University of Science and Technology, where he conducted undergraduate research in volumetric error compensation for manufacturing robots with Dr. Douglas Bristow and Dr. Robert Lammers. Dr. Embry would later obtain his PhD in Mechanical engineering from the University of Texas at Dallas with advisor Dr. Bobby Gregg, where he developed a love for rehabilitation research. His dissertation focused on modeling and control of agile powered prosthetic legs. Dr. Embry now works as a postdoctoral researcher at Shirley Ryan AbilityLab with director Dr. Arun Jayaraman. His recent projects include exoskeleton gait therapy, computer vision for monitoring Parkinson’s disease, and wearable airbag technology designed to reduce the rate of hip injury after a fall. Dr. Embry looks forward to learning more about the frontiers of rehabilitation robotics, and utilizing his background in robotics, human subject research, convex optimization and machine learning to tackle increasingly important problems.

 

Deanna Gates, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Movement Science, Biomedical Engineering, and Robotics at the University of Michigan.  She earned her B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Virginia (2002), M.S. in Biomedical Engineering from Boston University (2004), and Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin (2009).  Dr. Gates worked in engineering consulting and in civilian and military clinical gait laboratories, before arriving at the University of Michigan in 2012. The goal of her research program is to improve function and quality of life in individuals with musculoskeletal impairments.  Dr. Gates’ lab focuses on understanding how individuals adapt their neuromechanics in response to assistive technology. Her research explores the factors that relate to a person’s ability to successfully use assistive devices, how to train individuals for optimal use, and the development of appropriate outcome measures to assess success of new technology. Dr. Gates is also an Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Neural Engineering and Rehabilitation and a consulting Editor for the Journal of Biomechanics.

 

Jason Gillette is an Associate Professor and the Director of Graduate Education with the Department of Kinesiology at Iowa State University. Dr. Gillette is a member of the ASTM International F48 Exoskeletons and Exosuits Committee. His research interests include biomechanics, ergonomics, and injury mechanisms. Dr. Gillette performs exoskeleton assessments using EMG and motion analysis to quantify effects on muscle activation and fatigue. He has completed exoskeleton studies in lab, manufacturing, and construction settings with companies such as Toyota, John Deere, and Granite Construction.

 

Dr. Connor Glass is the Founder & CEO of the human-machine interfacing company, Phantom Neuro. Dr. Glass received his MD at the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine and completed a two year research fellowship in the Departments of Plastic & Reconstructive Surgery and Biomedical Engineering at Johns Hopkins where he studied microsurgical interventions for neuromuscular injury. While at Johns Hopkins, Dr. Glass invented and patented the technology Phantom seeks to commercialize. Dr. Glass founded Phantom in 2020 and recently closed a multi-million dollar financing round that included high-profile Silicon Valley venture capitalists such as Tim Draper.

 

Levi J. Hargrove, PhD, P.Eng, received his MScE and PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of New Brunswick (2005, 2008). He is currently the Director and Scientific Chair of Center for Bionic Medicine at the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab and an Associate Professor in the Departments of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation and the McCormick School of Engineering at Northwestern University. His research interests include signal processing, pattern recognition, and control of bionic limbs. A major goal of his research is to develop clinically realizable myoelectric control systems that can be made available to persons with limb loss in the near future. In 2012, Dr. Hargrove co-founded Coapt, a company to commercialize control algorithms for prosthetics and orthotics. To date, the company has received three FDA Class II Medical Device Clearances, and sells controllers to patients worldwide. The company also sells EMG measurement systems to research groups looking to incorporate EMG signals into the control of bionic legs and exoskeletons. His research addresses all levels of amputation and has been published in the Journal of the American Medical Association and the New England Journal of Medicine and has resulted in multiple patents. Key projects include the development of advanced and adaptive control systems for prosthetic legs, improving control of robotic hand prostheses, and intramuscular EMG signal processing.

Mirjam Holl is a research associate at the Institute of Industrial Manufacturing and Management IFF, University of Stuttgart. She received her B.A. degree in Sport, Health and Leisure from University of Education, Karlsruhe, Germany, in 2017 and the M.Sc. degree in Biomechanics – Motor Skill – Human Motion Analysis from Justus Liebig University, Giessen, Germany, in 2021.

Jesse Jacobs is the Product Director of Science and Research for Risk Control Services at Liberty Mutual Insurance. He supports development of new research in safety and risk and the translation of the results into practice. Prior to his current role, Jesse was a Director of Data Science and also worked as a Senior Research Scientist for the Liberty Mutual Research Institute for Safety. Before joining Liberty, Jesse was a faculty member of the Dept. of Rehabilitation and Movement Science at the University of Vermont. He holds a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Oregon Health & Science University and a BA in Neuroscience from The Colorado College.

 

Verena Kopp is a research associate at the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation IPA in Stuttgart, Germany in the department Biomechatronic Systems.

She received her B.Sc. degree in Physical Activity and Health from Justus Liebig University, Giessen, Germany, in 2016 and the M.Sc. degree in Biomechanics – Motor Skill – Human Motion Analysis from Justus Liebig University, Giessen, Germany, in 2019.

 

Francesco Lanotte is a Postdoctoral Fellow within the Max Näder Lab for Rehabilitation Technologies and Outcomes Research (Shirley Ryan AbilityLab, Chicago, USA) and Northwestern University (Chicago, USA). He is currently investigating the use of wearable sensors combined with machine learning techniques to enhance the rehabilitation therapy in stroke survivors. Francesco received his MS degree in Bionics Engineering from the University of Pisa and Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna in 2017, and his PhD in Biorobotics from Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna in 2021. Dr. Lanotte’s PhD research was focused on the development, benchmark, and experimental assessment of control algorithms for powered exoskeletons and lower-limb prostheses.

 

Dr. Brokoslaw Laschowski is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute working in the Intelligent Assistive Technology and Systems Laboratory (IATSL) and the Artificial Intelligence and Robotics in Rehabilitation (AIRR) Lab. He also holds an affiliation with the Faculty of Medicine and the Temerty Centre for Artificial Intelligence Research and Education in Medicine (T-CAIREM) at the University of Toronto. As a scientist and biomedical engineer, Dr. Laschowski specializes in using mathematical, computational, and machine learning methods to optimize the design and control of humans interacting with wearable robotic systems and technologies. Applications of his research include rehabilitation robotics, neural engineering, human-computer interaction, and wearable assistive technologies (e.g., exoskeletons and robotic leg prostheses). Dr. Laschowski’s clinical research focuses on assisting individuals with mobility impairments due to aging and/or physical disabilities such as stroke, cerebral palsy, Parkinson’s disease, amputation, and spinal cord injury.

 

Bérenger Le Tellier graduated with a Mechanical Engineering degree then a PhD in Biomechanics. After a few years working in collaborative innovation projects, Bérenger joined ErgoSanté as their Scientific Director. Bérenger ensures the development of ErgoSanté products are following a methodology based on the latest scientific knowledge.

 

Tommaso Lenzi, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and a Core Faculty in the Robotics Center at the University of Utah. Previously, he was a Research Scientist at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago (2015-2016) and a Postdoctoral Fellow at Northwestern University (2013-2014). Dr. Lenzi received his Ph.D. degree in Biorobotics from Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna in 2012 and the MS degree in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Pisa in 2008. At Utah, he directs the Bionic Engineering Lab, where he conducts research sponsored by the Department of Defense, the National Science Foundation, and the National Institute of Health. Dr. Lenzi received the CAREER award from NSF in 2021. His main research interests include robotics, mechatronics, and rehabilitation medicine with a major emphasis on the design and control of wearable robots for human assistance and rehabilitation. He serves as Associate Editor for IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, the International Conferences on Rehabilitation Robotics (ICORR), and Biomedical Robotics and Biomechatronics (BIOROB). He is a member of IEEE, the Robotics and Automation Society (RAS), and the Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBS).

Dr. Maulik Majmudar is a cardiologist and Chief Medical Officer and Co-Founder at Biofourmis, a rapidly growing virtual care delivery and digital therapeutics company. At Biofourmis, Dr. Majmudar leads product, data science, clinical operations, and clinical affairs functions. Prior to joining Biofourmis, he was a Medical Officer at Amazon, responsible for the development and launch of Amazon Halo, Amazon’s first health and wellness focused membership service. Dr. Majmudar was also Associate Director of the Healthcare Transformation Lab at Massachusetts General Hospital, and an Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School, where he was responsible for the identification, validation, and implementation of digital health solutions to improve care delivery as well as the patient and provider experience. While at MGH, he was awarded an education grant from the Aetna Foundation to launch a new Fellowship in Healthcare Innovation, aimed at fostering the next generation of clinician innovators.

Dr. Majmudar attended Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and then completed residency training in Internal Medicine at The Johns Hopkins Hospital, followed by a cardiovascular medicine fellowship at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He also holds two patents and has had several publications in high-impact journals, such as Nature, Circulation, JAMA, and Journal of Healthcare Delivery and Implementation Science.

 

Matthew Marino is the Director of Ergonomics and Human Performance at HeroWear where he’s been involved in the design, testing, and implementation of exosuits since 2019. Matt has accumulated extensive experience as a practitioner providing rehabilitation, injury prevention, performance optimization, and ergonomics consulting services since beginning his career as a Physical Therapist, coach and ergonomist over 2 decades ago. He began working with exoskeletons in 2015, helping people and companies test and implement dozens of different devices, and fitting them on thousands of people in clinical applications and physically demanding jobs. He is an active member of the ASTM F48 Committee on Exoskeletons and Exosuits and is a founding partner of the ASTM Exo Technology Center of Excellence. Matt has published articles on exoskeletons and exosuits in a wide variety of publications, including peer reviewed journal articles, and presented related work at dozens of health, safety, ergonomics and wearable technology conferences.