Fall 2024

Abstract 

Over 40 million people in the United States live with mobility impairments. With this number projected to rise in the coming years, understanding how humans adapt to natural surfaces and learn new motor tasks is increasingly important. At the same time, wearable robotic devices are becoming more widespread as assistive tools. However, their effectiveness is limited by the unpredictable movement patterns of individuals with motor impairment, especially on uneven terrain. In this seminar, we will discuss our work on evaluating gait on uneven terrain in healthy individuals and those with impairments, as well as recent advances in optimizing prosthesis and exoskeleton assistance for people with lower-limb amputations. We will consider the potential benefits of robotic interventions and highlight the key challenges that must be addressed to allow such devices to more effectively restore locomotor function after gait impairment.

Spring 2025

Abstract 

Fishes exhibit extraordinary locomotor abilities, a key factor in their evolutionary success. My research integrates detailed movement and energetics analyses of swimming with robotics to explore how fishes undertake large-scale migrations, execute rapid maneuvers, and conserve energy by interacting with structures and selecting abiotic gradients in their environment. During my seminar, I will discuss the consequences of flow and climate change stressors on locomotor performance and the clever solutions fishes employ to enhance swimming efficiency. This exploration leads to the conclusion that fishes are not merely ‘the puppet of the environment’ but rather exhibit sophisticated behavioral and physiological mechanisms to exploit diverse conditions.

Abstract 

For over a hundred years, the fields of aerodynamics and hydrodynamics have offered us experimental tools and theoretical and computational models to study fluid-structure interaction to understand life in moving fluids and design and control aerial and aquatic vehicles. By contrast, our understanding of the locomotor-environment interaction for terrestrial animals and bio-inspired robots had been largely limited to flat, rigid ground. My research focuses on developing a new field of “terradynamics” to help understand how animals in complex terrain ubiquitous in nature and improve robot performance in the real world. 

In this talk, I will give a few samples of my terradynamics research most relevant to morphology and design. This includes: (1) lizard foot function and robot leg design to move on dry sand, (2) cockroach and robot body design to traverse dense obstacles, (3) cockroach self-righting after overturning, and (4) snake body oscillation and compliance to climb steps. If times allows, I will also briefly mention ongoing terradynamic studies, such as: (5) amphibious fish crawling on mud, and (6) spider vibration sensing of prey on webs.

Abstract 

Understanding how system dynamics shape human performance offers a window into behavioral resilience—how individuals not only adapt to, but thrive under, varying environmental demands. This presentation introduces a comprehensive framework, grounded in behavioral dynamics, that integrates state and parameter dynamics to model the emergence of resilient performance.  Leveraging our Automated Digital Assessment for Performance Training (ADAPT) virtual reality (VR) platform, we simulate and manipulate ecologically valid task demands to examine how human behavior emerges in response to changing environmental constraints. Within this framework, nonlinear analysis techniques quantify key signatures of resilience. Specifically, recurrence quantification analysis (RQA) probes state dynamics—capturing characteristics of intermittency and metastability in neuromuscular and visuomotor behaviors. In parallel, we employ a complex systems model of visually guided navigation to evaluate parameter dynamics, revealing how perceptual thresholds and action strategies shift in response to environmental demands. Together, these tools reveal how the interplay of organismic and environmental constraints shapes resilient performance, with empirical results demonstrating that dynamic signatures of adaptation—rather than static measures—more accurately characterize performance potential in high-stakes environments. By grounding behavioral resilience in quantifiable system dynamics, this work advances a mathematical foundation for next-generation models of athlete performance, recovery, and individualized training. 

Abstract 

TBA

Fall 2025