By Amanda Agnew
The 13th Annual Injury Biomechanics Symposium (IBS) for students was hosted by the Injury Biomechanics Research Center on May 21-23, 2017 at The Ohio State University. Sponsorship was provided by Toyota’s Collaborative Safety Research Center and the Transportation Research Center as headlining and awarding partners, respectively, in addition to numerous other sponsors that make the IBS possible. The Injury Biomechanics Symposium provides a welcoming atmosphere where novice researchers receive feedback and support for their original work. It gives students an opportunity to develop their presentation skills in a non-threatening environment and promotes networking and relationship building between students and faculty, as well as, industry members that can have both immediate and long-term impacts on students’ academic and professional careers.
This year’s Symposium showcased the work of 27 student presenters representing 12 universities, both nationally and internationally. There were 15 poster presentations and 12 oral presentations which covered a variety of topics in injury biomechanics including occupant kinematics, head injury, lower extremity injury, thorax and abdomen biomechanics, and neck biomechanics. Awards were given to the best presenter in both the oral and poster categories. Presentations were judged by attendees who were members of both industry and academia and were judged on the following criteria: problem definition, quality of technical effort, originality/innovation of approach, and overall presentation.
Michelle Murach, an M.S. student from The Ohio State University, was awarded the Margaret H. Hines Best Oral Presenter Award for her presentation on A Preliminary Exploration of Contribution of the Individual Rib to Dynamic Response of the Human Thorax. Also, from The Ohio State University, Elina Misicka, a B.S student, was awarded the Rod Herriott Best Poster Presentation Award for her project Linear Effects of Subject-Level Variation on Structural Properties of Human Ribs.
More information, copies of papers and presentations, and a call for abstract submissions for the 2018 Injury Biomechanics Symposium can be found at www.ibrc.osu.edu/symposium/.