Joseph Morrison

MD/PhD student; Biomedical Engineering

2024 - present

Joe is an MD/PhD student at UC Davis in the Biomedical Engineering Graduate Group (BMEGG) in the Christiansen Lab under the mentorship of Dr. Dovin Kiernan. Joe is utilizing machine learning to develop an individualized approach to clinical management of bone loss. This translational research utilizes his clinical and engineering backgrounds with the goal of improving clinical outcomes associated with osteopenia and osteoporosis. He is a TL1 Scholar with additional interests in health disparities and medical education research. 

Samantha Rita Rapp

post-Bac

2025 - present

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Zachary Katzman

Undergraduate student; Neurobiology, Physiology, and Behavior

2019 - 2021

Zach's research culminated in the publication of a paper that systematically investigated the effects that misplacing an IMU can have on measured accelerations and angular velocities as well as commonly derived outcomes like ground reaction forces and ground contact times. This work is important for understanding biomechanics data collected in the real world where the IMU can move over a long run or an experimenter/participant can misplace it slightly.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38276348/

Zach is now a student at Des Moines University studying to be a Doctor of Podiatric Medicine.

Kristine Dunn Siino

Undergraduate student; Neurobiology, Physiology, and Behavior

2019 - 2020

Kristine's research investigated 18 different methods to use real world accelerations collected from a small wearable device (IMU) during running and estimate when the runner's foot was in contact with the ground. This is a critical first step in many biomechanics analyses and paves the way for accurate examinations of real world running biomechanics in future studies.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37299749/

Kristine is now a Registered Nurse working in the Stanford Children's Hospital pediatric cardiac ICU.

Brandon Ng

Undergraduate student; Biomedical Engineering

2019 - 2020

Brandon's research systematically compared 27 different methods to estimate ground reaction forces form a small wearable device (IMU) during running. These forces have been theorized to cause running injury and, using Brandon's research, can now be measured accurately in the real world.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37960420/

After graduating from the University of Davis, California with his bachelor's degree in Biomedical Engineering, Brandon is now looking for opportunities to apply his biomechanics expertise in industry. Contact him here:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/brandon-g-ng/

Laura Oelsner

Undergraduate student; Biomedical Engineering

2016 - 2017

Laura's research followed the UC Davis Men's Track team for 2 months of real world training to try to predict running injury development. Using a small wearable accelerometer, we calculated the number of steps each runner took and the force generated by each step and found that combining them into a metric called 'cumulative load,' we could differentiate between injured and uninjured runners. This first of it's kind real world measurement of cumulative load points to exciting future research using wearables to predict and prevent running injury.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29699823/

Laura is now working as an engineer at BD, one of the largest global medical technology companies in the world. As an engineer with BD she helps develop innovative technology, services and solutions that help advance both clinical therapy for patients and clinical processes for health care providers.