ME Fall 2020 Seminar Series
Friday, September 4th • 2:30 PM
Webex Link: https://uconn-cmr.webex.com/uconn-
cmr/onstage/g.php?MTID=e4adea53646c75047bf0fc44602be7ab9
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USING BME MODELING TOOLS TO AID IN CLINICAL DIAGNOSIS OF ORTHOPEDIC INJURIES
Kristin Morgan, PhD
Biomedical Engineering, University of Connecticut
Abstract: Over 250,000 anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries occur every year in the United
States alone, costing over $1.5 billion dollars in rehabilitation and reconstruction care.
However, despite extensive rehabilitation, upwards of 56% of individuals fail to return to
previous functional levels years after treatment due to lingering neuromuscular impairments. These
impairments result in inactivity and the development of osteoarthritis (OA), osteoporosis and
cardiovascular disease, which are estimated to cost $62.1 billion, $14 billion, and $316.6
billion, respectively, a year in their own right. Thus, the total cost of these injuries indicates
a much bigger problem than we realize. The prevalence of early onset OA in the post-ACL
reconstruction population indicates the need for a better understanding of the relationship between
neuromuscular control and musculoskeletal dynamics to improve the effectiveness of post ACL injury
rehabilitation care. Therefore, the objective of our work is to pioneer new post ACL
rehabilitation modalities that produce positive gait adaptation by combining innovative
experimental studies, machine learning and computational modeling to engineer novel gait protocols
and dynamic braces that better support the knee by engaging muscles during dynamic movement.
Biographical Sketch: Dr. Kristin Morgan is an Assistant Professor in the Biomedical Engineering at
the University of Connecticut. She received her B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees all in Biomedical
Engineering from Duke University, Virginia Commonwealth University, and the University of
Tennessee, respectively. She was a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Kentucky where she was
awarded the Lyman T. Johnson Postdoctoral Fellowship. Dr. Morgan has also been the recipient of a
Whitaker International Summer Grant Fellowship and is a National Institutes of Health Program for
Excellence & Equity in Research (PEER) Fellow, and a United States Bone and Joint Institute
Young Investigator. Dr. Morgan’s research interests are focused on the identification of
novel rehabilitation protocols to optimize long-term lower extremity injury outcomes and
innovative metrics to identify the restoration of healthy neuromuscular control. Her work has been
funded by General Dynamics Electric Boat and the Office of Naval Research.
For additional information, please contact Prof. Anna Tarakanova at (860) 486-5463,
anna.tarakanova@uconn.edu or Tina Barry at (860) 486-2178, tina.barry@.uconn.edu
For more information, contact: Prof. Anna Tarakanova/Mechanical Engineering at anna.tarakanova@uconn.edu