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ISB will be 50 next year!

ISB is about to celebrate its first 50 years! Join us ...

ISB was founded on 30th August 1973. In August 2023, in Fukuoka at our next Congress, we want to organize a big birthday party! But we have about a year and a half before we can officially celebrate this great achievement. We should be proud to be not only the most international and the largest society in Biomechanics, but also the oldest. These have been 50 years of education, creation, aggregation, success, dedication, connection, donation, inspiration, innovation, and in one word - passion. We have contributed to novel devices, treatments, and performances for the benefit of clinical, physical, and industrial activities. All this from real science, based on experimental measurements, validated models, established theories, settled algorithms. We are grateful to the founders, but also want to look ahead and contribute with our discipline to a better quality of life, world-wide. In this period to come we would love to arrange a number of initiatives to remember, to store and to take advantage of these vital steps forward. The traditional ISB logo is thus embellished for these two years!

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BOOM: Biomechanics podcast

Episode 44: Skin Mechanics and Collaborative Friendships | Adrian Buganza Tepole and Manuel Rausch

In this episode, we cover skin biomechanics! As our largest organ, the skin is an essential part of movement and a source of protection for our bodies. Learn about why studying skin biomechanics is so critical from Professors Manuel Rausch and Adrian Buganza Tepole, from UT Austin and Purdue University, respectively. They share how their expertise in modeling and experimental techniques support each other in understanding skin mechanics and applications to diseases and conditions affecting the skin, such as pressure ulcers. We also learn about what has made their cross-university collaboration (and friendship) so successful.

Follow Adrian and Manuel!
Manuel’s Twitter: @ManuelKRausch1
Manuel’s research lab: www.manuelrausch.com/
Adrian’s Twitter: @ABuganzaT
Adrian’s research lab: engineering.purdue.edu/tepolelab/

Follow BOOM!
Twitter: @biomechanicsOOM
Instagram and Facebook: @biomechanicsonourminds
Website and shop: biomechanicsonourminds.com

Bit of BOOM:
Song, et al. 2021. Miniaturized electromechanical devices for the characterization of the biomechanics of deep tissue. Nature Biomedical Engineering. 5: 759–771.
(www.nature.com/articles/s41551-021-00723-y)

biomechanics research skin collaboration aging

ISB President's Lecture

In case you missed the superb event that was the ISB2021, we are pleased to be able to share the President's lecture, given by outgoing ISB President, Professor Toni Arndt.

Bertec join ISB as Gold Sponsors

A big thanks to our new Gold Level Sponsors, Bertec!

We are thrilled to have you support the International Society of Biomechanics and appreciate your support.

Professor Scott Delp Receives the Muybridge Award

Congratulations to Professor Scott Delp, who received the Muybridge Award at the 2021 ISB Congress. The Muybridge award is the most prestigious award of the Society. It is awarded for career achievements in biomechanics. The award is named after Eadward Muybridge (1830-1904), who was the first to use cinematography for the study of human and animal movement.

Scott L. Delp, Ph.D., is the James H. Clark Professor of Bioengineering, Mechanical Engineering, and Orthopaedic Surgery at Stanford University. He is the Founding Chairman of the Department of Bioengineering at Stanford, Director of the RESTORE Center, a NIH national center focused on measuring real world rehabilitation outcomes, and Director of the Mobilize Center, a NIH National Center of Excellence focused on Big Data and Mobile Health. Scott is focused on developing technologies to advance movement science and human health. Software tools developed in his lab, including OpenSim and Simtk.org, have become the basis of an international collaboration involving thousands of students and scientists who exchange simulations of human movement. Prior to joining the faculty at Stanford, Delp was on the faculty at Northwestern University and the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago. He has published over 250 research articles in the field of biomechanics and has recently published a text from MIT Press entitled Biomechanics of Movement: The Science of Sports, Robotics, and Rehabilitation. Professor Delp has co-founded six health technology companies and is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering.

Obituary - Richard C Nelson

Richard C Nelson (1932-2020)

Richard Nelson, a founding member of the ISB, passed away Tuesday, December 22, 2020 at the age of 88. Richard (Dick) made broad contributions to biomechanics, and in particular to the ISB.

Dick was born in Albert Lea, Minnesota. He received his undergraduate degree from St. Olaf College, Minnesota in Physical Education and Biology. Upon graduation he joined the US Air Force attaining the rank of First Lieutenant. In 1957 he earned a master’s degree from the University of Houston, and in 1960 received his Ph.D. from the Michigan State University. From 1960 to 1964 he was an Assistant Professor at the University of Maryland, before moving to Penn State University where he achieved the rank of Professor in 1970. In 1994 he retired from Penn State with emeritus status but remained active at Penn State until health issues impeded his ability to contribute.

At Penn State he founded the Biomechanics Laboratory in 1967, the first such facility in the US. Dick worked hard to promote graduate education, in particular work with an emphasis in biomechanics. He was always proud of the lab’s alumni; Dick advised 66 masters students, and 33 doctoral students.

In 1973 Dick along with Chauncey Morehouse organized and hosted the Fourth International Seminar on Biomechanics at Penn State. These seminars were the precursors to the ISB Congress. It was at the fourth seminar that the ISB was formed. Dick served as the societies’ second President from 1977 to 1982. He also served as the society treasurer from 1987 to 1989. Dick attended ISB Congresses until ill health precluded such involvement. At the XVIII ISB Congress in 2001 in Zurich, Dick delivered the Wartenweiler Memorial Lecture. In recognition of Dick’s significant contributions to the ISB he in an honorary member.

The International Olympic Committee Medical Commission formed a sub-commission in 1982 on Biomechanics and Physiology. Dick had petitioned since the early 1970s for the recording of athlete performances at the Olympics, with this new sub-commission and his membership of the sub-commission his dream became a reality. Athlete performances were recorded for the first time at the 1984 Los Angeles Games, and have been a feature of both summer and winter games since then.

Dick’s research interests were broad and included,

Load carriage in the military
Body size and athletic performance
Starting techniques in swimming
Testing of landing surfaces
Development of football helmets

This research was augmented by an early graduate level text in sports biomechanics (Miller, D. I., & Nelson, R. C. (1973). Biomechanics of Sport. London: Henry Kimpton.). He was also the founding editor of the International Journal of Sports Biomechanics, which eventually became the Journal of Applied Biomechanics.

Dick was an early proponent of the value of the biomechanical determination if an accident was the cause of an alleged injury (forensic biomechanics). He became actively involved in forensic biomechanics contributing to over 500 cases. At the Third North American Congress on Biomechanics (NACOB, 1998) he delivered a keynote titled “Forensic Biomechanics”. Then at the XVII ISB Congress (Calgary, 1999) he organized a session titled “Forum on Forensic Biomechanics”.

Biomechanics has lost a significant figure, and the ISB one of its major progenitors.

John H Challis

Penn State

You can read more about Dick Nelson and his contributions to biomechanics here.