Healthy Age-Related Physical function & Ergonomics/Exercise Research (HARPER) Laboratory

UAH students: Please email me to discuss Spring 2025 opportunities and beyond

Current:

Home Stairway Survey - attitudes and intentions to use handrails on both sides of stairways and add tread-edge striping to home stairways

Instrumenting Stairways: Lab vs. Real-World Scenarios [RCEU; New Faculty Research Award] - use of instrumented (force plate) steps to public stairways and using stereo cameras, instrument / measure stairs ‘outside of the lab.’

Biomechanical and Safety Considerations of Older Adult Fallers in Long-Term Care Homes

Department of Kinesiology Undergraduate Alumni Survey

In Development:

Look Before You Leap - outdoor observational stairway assessment

Comparative Analysis of Musculoskeletal Health and Fall Risk: A Multifaceted Approach Using DXA, Physical Performance Tests, and Lifestyle

Completed:

Grip Reinforcement Integrated Power with Magnetic Actuation for Seamless Tactical Exoskeleton Response (GRIPMASTER) [Phase I]

Piloting Head-neck motion measurement and neck muscle activity during piloting task motions wearing military head-supported mass loadings [Phase II sub-contract]

Major Equipment:

Motion Capture - Vicon 8 Vero cameras, FLIR Backfly video camera

Dynamic Fall Protection - SafeGait ACTIVE

Custom Stairs - Stairbuilders and Manufacturers Association

Instrumented Stairs / Force Platforms - Bertec

Virtual Reality / Augmented Reality - Meta Quest 3

Eye Tracking - Pupil Labs

Electromyographic (EMG) - Delsys Centro (Engineering collaboration)

Custom digital multiplex lighting/control

Extech LT3000 light meter

3D printing

Additional Kinesiology Department Equipment:

Electromyographic (EMG) - DataLITE Biometric (Kinesiology)

Isokinetic Dynamometer - HUMAC Norm

Hand-held Isokinetic Dynamometers - Jamar +

Vertical Jump - Just Jump System, Vertec

Blood Glucose and Lactate - Cardio Check, Lactate Plus

BodPod - Cosmed

DEXA - Hologic Horizon

Metabolic Cart - Parvomedics

Portable force plates, Hawkin’s Dynamics

Monark Cycle Ergometers (828E), COSMED

Resistance Training Equipment, Perform®Better!

Blood flow restriction SmartCuffs

Hydrotrack Underwater Treadmill System, HydroWorx (Dr. Conners)