Thurmon Lockhart
Thurmon Lockhart, an associate professor with the College of Engineering at Virginia Tech’s Grado Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, has been invited to serve a five-year term on the Center for Scientific Review’s Musculoskeletal Rehabilitation Sciences Study Section at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
The term began July 1 and expires June 30, 2016. Study section members review grant applications submitted to the NIH, and making recommendations on these applications to the appropriate national advisory council or board. They also survey the status of research in their respective field of study.
Selection is based on the member’s demonstrated expertise and achievement in their area of study, including quality of their research accomplishments, publications in scientific journals and peer-group honors, among other factors, according to the Center for Scientific Review.
Director of the Virginia Tech’s Locomotion Research Lab, Lockhart earned his bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees in industrial engineering from Texas Tech University in 1992, 1997 and 2000, respectively. His research focus includes gait biomechanics, postural control and slips and falls in both the young and elderly populations.
Lockhart is known nationally for his work in slip prevention training. Along with several current and former Virginia Tech College of Engineering members, he created a slip simulator, a large, parallel framework that a person walks under, while a computer-controlled, linoleum-covered floor shifts, causing the walker to lose his or her footing. Rather than fall, though, the person is harnessed to the frame’s top section and stays upright. Hence they “learn” to fall, and catch themselves. The device is now used be several corporations, including delivery giant UPS, which trains its employees on the device to reduce workplace injuries.