Kinesiology doctoral student receives American Society of Biomechanics travel grant to attend international conference

Bria Smith, a doctoral student in Auburn University’s School of Kinesiology in the College of Education, was selected by the American Society of Biomechanics to receive a travel grant to attend the World Congress of Biomechanics, held in July in Vancouver, Canada. Recipients were selected based on high scores on their accepted abstracts and earned free registration to the conference. 

Smith, who conducts research in Assistant Professor Jaimie Roper’s Locomotor and Movement Control Lab, presented a posted titled “Gait Speed Reserve of Young Adults Is Not Affected by a Sleep Extension Intervention.” The project was the result of a collaboration between her lab; Dr. Meral Culver, an Auburn University alumna and assistant professor at Texas A&M University-Kingsville; and Austin Robinson, associate professor at Indiana University Bloomington. The study explores the impact of sleep, specifically sleep extension, on motor functioning as demonstrated through a gait task.

“As researchers, a large part of our work involves scientific communication – disseminating our findings, sharing our methods and presenting our work to inspire advancement within our field,” Smith said. “I am grateful to have been selected for the NextGen Biomechanics Travel Award for a second year because a conference of this scale is too great of an opportunity to miss out on. The World Congress of Biomechanics happens once every four years and being able to attend, for me, means sharing a piece of my lab's work, opening doors for collaboration in research and outreach, connecting with professionals in my field on a global scale and learning more about the field I strive to become an expert in.”

Four other doctoral students from the Locomotor and Movement Control Lab, and Roper, also presented at the conference: 

• Brandon Peoples: “Uneven Beginnings: Anticipatory Postural Adjustments and Muscle Quality Asymmetry During Gait Initiation at a Self-Selected Speed” and “Joint Power Redistribution and Reduced Mechanical Efficiency in Adults with Knee Injury During User-Controlled Walking”
  
  
• Keven Santamaria-Guzman: “Working Harder to Walk Slower: Treadmill-Based Gait Assessment Systematically Underestimates Overground Performance in Older Adults
  
  
• Damaris Cifuentes: “Objective Gait Performance Does Not Predict Mobility Satisfaction in Older Adults”
  
  
• Silvia Campos Vargas: “Gait Gear Shifting: Age and Perception Modulate Walking Speed”
  
  
• Lab Director Jaimie Roper presented “Introduction and Problem Framing: Analyzing Gait and Balance in the Deep South” at a pre-conference session titled “Bringing Biomechanics to the People: Field-Based Measurement Across Contexts, Communities, and Populations.”

For more information on the research presented, go to the World Congress of Biomechanics website.