It's not every day that we get to welcome the Acting Administrator of NHTSA into our laboratory!
It was truly an honor to be able to show off a few of our ongoing projects, and have meaningful discussions with NHTSA leadership about road safety and injury prevention research.
Are you interested in touring our space and hearing more about our projects? Feel free to reach out!

The Test Device for Human Occupant Restraint (THOR) is an advanced anthropomorphic test device (ATD) designed by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). The current design of the THOR incorporates advanced sensors and instrumentation that output over 100 channels of data that allow for injury risk assessment.

Graduate student Sebastian Giudice (left), from the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace's Center for Applied Biomechanics, won first place in the podium presentation category at the (virtual) 15th annual University of Virginia Engineering Research Symposium. The event highlights the research achievements across all UVA Engineering's graduate student body. Research scientist Bronek Gepner (right) who is also from the department's Center for Applied Biomechanics, won the Research Mentor of the Year award.

CAB researchers have recently shared body segment position and orientation data from a recent study of reclined occupant sled testing with two European consortium projects focused on improving occupant safety for new seating positions that may become popular in highly automated vehicles. The CAB is proposing the use of these data as a standard for use in positioning human body models (HBMs) in reclined postures, since they provide a target and tolerances from realistic occupant positions.

UVA CAB 2019 study on female occupants referenced in an October 23, 2019 Consumer Reports article.

https://www.consumerreports.org/car-safety/crash-test-bias-how-male-foc…

31 members of UVA's Center for Applied Biomechanics visited the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) on August 15 to tour the facility and witness a crash test of a 2019 Tesla Model 3. Located just 12 miles from each other, CAB and IIHS share a common goal of reducing injuries from automobile crashes.

The competition will bring together manufacturers, engineers and entrepreneurs amid heightened awareness of the risks of repetitive head trauma. “What we've heard is there are a number of far-reaching ideas on white boards that folks haven't been able to prioritize due to current constraints,” said Jeff Crandall, chair of the NFL's engineering committee and director of the UVA Center for Applied Biomechanics. “The challenge seems to be to find a way we can get them out into the marketplace.” READ MORE

CAB PhD student Carolyn Roberts and a new CAB research study by Jason Forman were featured in a new article from Canadian news outlet CBC this morning. Check it out!

NPR and WMRA Public Radio aired a segment regarding seat belt research conducted at our facility. The story features Professor Jason Kerrigan, Research Engineers Brian Overby and Patrick Fotlz, and Graduate Research Assistant (and PhD candidates) Hamed Joodaki and Carolyn Roberts.

Congratulations to all the CAB graduates this year! UVA Convocation was a hot and sunny day, but everyone had a good time. Graduating this year were Ahmed Alshareef (BME PhD), Taotao Wu (MAE PhD), Jacek Toczyski (MAE PhD), and Preston Greenhalgh (MAE MS).

Ahmed Al-Shareef, PhD, Professor Matt Panzer, PhD, Taotao Wu, PhD