Engineering to enhance human mobility, play, and exploration
We’re excited to share that Madeleine McCreary was selected as a recipient of the ASB student travel award for her abstract titled “Effects of Transcutaneous Spinal Cord Stimulation Amplitude on Gait in Children with Cerebral Palsy.” Her work was recognized by the ASB community for its contribution to pediatric neuromodulation research. Congratulations, Madeleine!
Members of the lab traveled to the base of Mt. Rainier for the Dynamic Walking Conference, where conversations ranged from hummingbird drumming to exoskeletons and robotics.
Dr. Kat Steele was selected to give a 20-minute talk, “Bayesian methods for individualized modeling with wearable data.” PhD student Ally Clarke gave a 5-minute talk on energy savings from bodyweight support in children with cerebral palsy, sharing results from our Cerebral Palsy Energetics study . PhD student Mackenzie Pitts also gave a 5-minute talk on her work from the Dynamic Motor Control study, discussing the mechanical strategies children with cerebral palsy use to adapt step length during split-belt treadmill walking.
We loved reconnecting with former lab members Dr. Michael Rosenberg, Dr. Momona Yamagami, and Tori Landrum.
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Journal Article in Journal of Biomechanics
For children with cerebral palsy (CP), interventions that provide support like BWS treadmill training, orthoses, or walkers have been shown to improve walking speed, endurance, and/or kinematics – although responses are variable and challenging to predict.
Aim: Body weight support (BWS) is often provided during rehabilitation interventions or activities of daily living with assistive devices for children with cerebral palsy (CP). How individuals alter their muscle activity and coordination in response to BWS provides insight into neuromuscular control and may inform the design of future interventions.
Methods: Children with CP (n = 12) and typically developing (TD) peers (n = 8) walked on a treadmill with 1%, 20%, 40%, and 60% BWS while electromyographic (EMG) data was recorded from 7 lower limb muscles. We computed muscle synergies from the EMG data using non-negative matrix factorization.
Results: As BWS increased, activity of support muscles like the gluteus maximus and gluteus medius decreased for both CP and TD groups. Children with CP had significantly reduced synergy complexity compared to TD peers (total variance accounted for by one synergy, tVAF1 = 76.3 for CP versus 67.4 for TD averaged across all conditions). However, synergy complexity did not change with BWS for either group.
Interpretation: Although BWS may assist mobility by reducing demand on support muscles, it does not directly modulate motor control.
We’re thrilled to share that Alisha Bose, an undergraduate in the Neuromechanics & Mobility Lab, has been honored with the Dennis Lang Award from the University of Washington Disability Studies Program.
Alisha graduated with a degree in Human Centered Design & Engineering and a minor in Disability Studies, and this award recognizes her outstanding academic work and spirited commitment to the field. The Dennis Lang Award celebrates the legacy of Dennis Lang, a co-founder of the UW Disability Studies Program, whose dedication and service were instrumental in shaping the program and its community.
Alisha received a merit-based monetary award and was recognized at the Disability Studies convocation on June 5. She’ll be starting the Master of Information Management and Systems (MIMS) program at UC Berkeley this fall.
Congratulations, Alisha! Your work continues to inspire and advance the values of inclusion, equity, and excellence in disability studies.
Huge congratulations to Dr. Mia Hoffman, recipient of the University of Washington’s 2026 Graduate School Medal – awarded to doctoral graduates whose research and civic engagement drive real social change.
Mia’s dissertation grew out of a simple question: how could a toddler with cerebral palsy play alongside her sibling? That question led to the Switch Kit, a low-cost, customizable system that helps children with motor disabilities engage in play, co-designed with families, clinicians, and speech-language pathologists. Her leadership of HuskyADAPT helped bring adapted toys to families across Washington State.
Mia earned her Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering, co-advised by our own Dr. Kat Steele and Dr. Heather Feldner, and was also named to this year’s Husky 100. She’s headed to Ohio State for a postdoctoral fellowship, and eventually hopes to launch her own lab focused on mobility, accessibility, and play.
Congratulations, Dr. Hoffman – we can’t wait to see what’s next!
Read the full feature from the UW Graduate School.
