From lab to implementation, role of biomechanics for assisting movement

Lanie Gutierrez-Farewik (KTH Royal Institute of Technology)
From lab to implementation, role of biomechanics for assisting movement

Plenary Lecture, Thursday June 5th, 2025, 12:30-13:30

Abstract

The ability to move is fundamental for humans. The quality and performance of one’s movement and walking reflect to a large amount their motor function and ability to synthesize it with perception, cognition and goals. Her group at KTH MoveAbility conduct research on patient populations with a range of neuromuscular movement disorders as well as a normally aging population. Their goals include decoding the complex relationships that govern human movement, analyzing neuromuscular function, predicting movement performance, studying added value of various interventions on movement improvement, developing assistive devices that interact with the user to achieve improved walking function, predicting risk of developing secondary injuries from movement compensations, understanding how sensorimotor interactions affect movement performance, and developing mobile systems to measure and monitor movement in everyday settings. Methods include experiments on human subjects, data-driven analyses and predictions, numerical simulations, and development of assistive and measurement devices.

Biosketch

Lanie Gutierrez-Farewik is Professor of Biomechanics at KTH Engineering Mechanics and director of the Promobilia MoveAbility Lab in Stockholm, Sweden. She is president of the Swedish Society of Biomechanics. She has an educational background in engineering from Cornell University and the University of Michigan and a PhD in Orthopedics from Karolinska Institutet, and nearly a decade of clinical experience at the Karolinska University Hospital with children and adults with motion disorders, during and after her doctoral studies. At KTH for just over 20 years and full professor since 2018, she founded and leads the research group of just over 20 people at KTH MoveAbility, with generous support from the Promobilia Foundation, the Swedish Research Council and Digital KTH MoveAbility, Department of Engineering Mechanics, Lanie Gutierrez-Farewik, Stockholm, Sweden.