Inspired by the Impact: Dedicated to Supporting Heroes
Human Engineering Research Laboratories founding director Rory Cooper
Pennsylvania has the fourth-largest veteran population in the United States, making the area surrounding the largest university in Western Pennsylvania a likely choice for many students and their families to live and plant roots. In turn, Pitt proudly educates, employs and collaborates with those in the military community, tackling some of the toughest challenges facing the United States and the world.
As home to world-renowned research helping members of the military thrive in both combat and civilian life, Pitt enables researchers to set their sights on higher survival rates through assistive technology development, better long-term health outcomes and better care for veterans transitioning into civilian life. The research is groundbreaking and life affirming, pulling in experts from multiple disciplines.
Ronald K. Poropatich
The Center for Military Medicine Research—led by Ronald K. Poropatich, professor of medicine—provides a multidisciplinary approach to military medicine research. Among the center’s recent innovations is TRAuma Care In a Rucksack (TRACIR), a fully autonomous medical backpack—now under development for the U.S. Army—that can provide autonomous delivery of resuscitative and robotically controlled care to injured soldiers in remote environments.
TRACIR is poised for applications far beyond the active combat zone. It has direct civilian use and could “be deployed by drone to hikers or mountain climbers injured in the wilderness or expand trauma care capabilities in rural health clinics or be used by aid workers responding to natural disasters,” says Poropatich, a 30-year active-duty U.S. Army veteran with significant appointments at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and extensive research experience in the role of artificial intelligence in telemedicine, prehospital care in remote locations and medical informatics.
The Human Engineering Research Laboratories—a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Research Center of Excellence—serves as the national Center for Wheelchairs and Assistive Robotics Engineering. Founding director Rory Cooper, a U.S. Army veteran who sustained a spinal cord injury while stationed overseas, has led his team to assist veterans and injured troops through robotic assistive technology research collaborations in health rehabilitation sciences and engineering. For our armed forces, these research findings aspire to provide more social support for the transition from soldier to civilian and keeping our veterans’ well-being top of mind.
As just one example, Disabled American Veterans asked Cooper and his colleagues to design a novel computer mouse modification for upper limb amputees who use a hook-type prosthetic. Veterans who use a hook-type end effector with their upper extremity prosthetic device have a difficult time moving a mouse or trackball or activating the buttons. This new device modifies an existing mouse with a 3-D-printed cover that makes it easy for the user to grasp with a hook and to operate the switches by tilting the shell. The lab is printing a limited number of computer mouse covers to gather user feedback while TechLink, in partnership with the VA Technology Transfer Program, finds a company to license and manufacture the device for sales to the public.
One of Pitt’s trademarks is its creative and collegial approach to expanding collaboration, especially in this field. In fact, the University’s leadership focus on military medicine and veteran-focused assistive technologies has resulted in colleagues gathering to conduct multidisciplinary research from key areas, such as engineering, health and rehabilitation sciences, medicine and robotics. The reputation for collaboration has been valuable to Pitt.
For five of the past six years, Pitt has been ranked in the top 20 on the Best Colleges for Veterans list by U.S. News & World Report.
Addressing a 40-year-old problem in MRI scanning—the failure to coordinate scan-based diagnoses across different MRI machines—Walter Schneider, professor in the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences Department of Psychology, and his team at Pitt’s Learning Research and Development Center have developed a cross-machine calibration solution that will be shared with 119 U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs imaging centers across the country through the VA Clinical Health Imaging Portability Standards project, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Defense. This project contributes to the improvement of medical diagnostics.