Structure and Motion Laboratory
People
Research Interests
General Interests:
- Locomotor biomechanics and evolution
- Paleobiology/evolutionary biology
- Computer simulation and dynamic analysis of locomotion
- Systematics, especially as it relates to the evolution of form and function
- Musculoskeletal anatomy, homology
and pathology
- Three-dimensional studies of anatomy and mechanics
- Integration of theoretical and empirical approaches
- Experimental validation of computer simulations
- Sensitivity analysis of unknown biomechanical parameters
- Scaling of anatomy, function and performance (especially deviations from main trends, e.g. at large sizes)
- Evolutionary biomechanics of large land animals: how and why do stance, gait and speed change with size?
- Finite element analysis of locomotor function
- Limits of functional and anatomical reconstruction in extinct animals
- The biomechanics of bipedal and quadrupedal locomotion
- Dinosaur biology (including extant birds)
- Elephant biology (including extinct proboscideans)
- Sub-optimal organismal design
Specific Interests:
(most of these are current projects, some with capacity for new collaborations, especially students and postdocs/fellowships; many are with collaborators-- see Links page for details)
- The musculoskeletal anatomy of elephants and other large land animals
- How do animal feet function in gait, and how does this relate to pathology?
- The biomechanics of locomotion in broiler chickens, and the evolution of domestic chickens
- The origin and evolution of terrestrial locomotion in vertebrates (i.e., tetrapods)
- The influence of size (e.g., dwarfing, gigantism) on elephant biomechanics
- How tyrannosaurs and other theropod dinosaurs stood and moved
- The evolution of locomotion in archosaurian reptiles, especially theropod dinosaurs (on the line to birds)
- The evolutionary biomechanics of bounding and galloping gaits in crocodylians
- The locomotor biomechanics of ratite birds, rhinoceroses, horses, and other tetrapods of medium-large size
- Estimation of body mass, center of mass, and mass moments of inertia in extinct animals (esp. dinosaurs)
- How animals sit down and stand up
- How long do muscle fibers need to be in terrestrial vertebrates?
- How limb muscle moment arms change with posture (and anatomical modeling assumptions)
See also:
