Dr Alexis Wiktorowicz Conroy
Alexis graduated with a biology degree from the University of California Santa Cruz (UCSC) in 2002. She pursued her interests in marine biology and comparative physiology, working with Terrie M Williams on seasonal differences in bottlenose dolphin blubber characteristics.
Inspired by the interaction between physiology and ecology, Alexis worked on her PhD with Malcolm S Gordon at University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). Here she studied the biomechanics and kinematics of swimming pufferfishes, which entailed examining locomotion patterns and measuring recoil movements and drag forces. Her collaborators included Dean Lauritzen, Mori Gharib (Caltech), Jay Hove (University of Cincinnati), Hao Liu (Chiba University, Japan) and John Dabiri (Caltech).
Alexis joined the Structure & Motion Lab in January 2008 to explore the field of terrestrial biomechanics. At present Alexis is working on the influence of locomotor behaviour on appendicular skeleton organisation at the macro and micro-structural levels.
Research Interests
- Comparative and ecological physiology
- Biomechanics of locomotion and manoeuvrability
- Energetics
- Flow visualisation (DPIV) and computational fluid dynamics.
Publications
Doube, M., Klosowski, M.M., Wiktorowicz-Conroy, A.M., Hutchinson, J.R., and S. Shefelbine. 2010. Scaling of bone trabeculae in birds and mammals maintains bone strain. Proceedings of the Royal Society B. March 9, 2011, doi: 10.1098/rspb.2011.0069
Pfau, T., Hinton, E., Whitehead, C., Wiktorowicz-Conroy, A.M., and J.R. Hutchinson. 2010. Temporal gait parameters in the alpaca and the evolution of pacing and trotting locomotion in the Camelidae. Journal of Zoology. Volume 283, Issue 3, pages 193-202, March 2011
Doube, M., Wiktorowicz-Conroy, A.M., Christiansen, P., Hutchinson, J.R., and S. Shefelbine. 2009. Three-dimensional geometric analysis of felid bone allometry. PLoS ONE. 4:e4742. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0004742.
GORDON, M.S., LAURITZEN, D.V., and WIKTOROWICZ, A.M. (2008) Passive Mechanisms Controlling Posture and Trajectory in Swimming Fishes. In Biomechanisms of Swimming and Flying, ISABMEC (ed. N. Kato). Tokyo, Japan: Springer. Pg. 53-65.
WIKTOROWICZ, A.M., LAURITZEN, D.V., and GORDON, M.S. (2007) Passive and Powered Control Mechanisms Contributing to Smooth, Dynamically Stable Swimming in Pufferfishes. Experiments in Fluids. (43) 725-735.
GORDON, M.S., LAURITZEN, D.V., and WIKTOROWICZ, A.M. (2007) Unrecognized Passive Controls of Posture and Trajectory in Many Actively Swimming Aquatic Animals. The Proceedings of the Seventeenth (2007) International Offshore and Polar Engineering Conference, ISOPE. Lisbon, Portugal. July 1-6, 2007. (2) 1138-1142.
E-mail: awiktorowicz at rvc.ac.uk