Research Opportunities

Prosthetics research is rewarding because we directly impact the quality of life of people with limb loss. Teamwork is a fun and essential component in our field. Our lab group members interact with each other extensively each day. Research subjects visit the lab approximately twice a week.

We are looking for a postdoctoral fellow to extend our socket and limb shape analysis efforts (see Advanced Socket Fabrication). The individual should have expertise in geometric morphometrics or a related field and proficiency in Matlab.

We are looking for highly motivated Masters level and PhD level students in engineering (bio, electrical, mechanical), rehabilitation medical sciences, and related disciplines. We are currently seeking students interested in starting small businesses upon completion of their degrees. Currently available projects require skills in either outcomes assessment or sensors/instrumentation.

New employees, both staff and students, typically come to our lab from a background other than prosthetics. Most new lab members have fewer than five years of work experience, and are starting a new career direction or working in research before going to graduate school.

Unlike most academic research facilities, our lab has an industry-based real-world attitude and culture. We improve clinical care, and we move forward very quickly, almost at a corporate pace. The work is hard but rewarding.

We are currently looking to fill the following positions:

We have had over 50 undergraduate student researchers in our lab, and many of them made major contributions and were co-authors on peer-reviewed publications. Undergraduates typically work on a new project that is tangential to our primary research efforts. We are currently looking for a student to complete the following project:

PEQ PROJECT: The Prosthesis Evaluation Questionnaire (PEQ) is a survey used regularly in the prosthetics industry. We are creating a computer based version of the survey for rapid data collection and processing during subject testing. The envisioned result is a custom application written for the iPad or other tablet. The application will allow for intuitive and accurate data entry. For each survey the application will produce a data file for easy data transfer to a database or custom data processing software.

A half-time position is available for a person with expertise in professional presentation to help disseminate research findings. The presentation audience will be clinical practitioners, people who use prosthetic limbs, funding agencies, and the general public. We seek a person capable of making dynamic and interesting materials and publications, as well as a person excited to interact with news and professional business people.