Biomechanics and Neural Control of Movement



 DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The 2016 Biomechanics and Neural Control of Movement meeting will bring together experts in musculoskeletal biomechanics, neuroscience, muscle physiology, clinical medicine, and biomedical engineering on the 20th anniversary of a seminal meeting on the same topic. The 1996 meeting had a profound impact on human movement science. Many of the world's best scientists and engineers studying motor control and rehabilitation interacted directly with postdoctoral scholars and graduate students at a small, isolated conference center. A large percentage of the graduate students and postdoctoral scholars that attended the 1996 meeting went on to become leaders in their fields. We will hold the 2016 Biomechanics and Neural Control of Movement meeting at the same conference center in Mt. Sterling, OH, and use a similar meeting format to generate open discussion and debate about the current state of the science of human movement control and rehabilitation. The meeting will have a single presentation track to bring together all 120 attendees in one room and extensive time will be scheduled for discussions around the presentations. This proposal seeks to obtain funding for 20 graduate student/postdoctoral researcher travel awards in order to defray costs of attendance for the next generation of human movement science scholars. At least half of the travel awards will go to individuals from underrepresented backgrounds based on race, ethnicity, disability status, or sex. The meeting will also include a one-to-one mentoring program for graduate students and postdoctoral scholars to foster networking and interaction between attendees from different institutions. The requested funds will help make the meeting available to a wider possible audience and encourage the success of future biomedical research leaders.