Sophie Tushak

Sophie was first exposed to computational injury biomechanics the summer after her second year at NC State while participating in research with military and automotive applications at the Wake Forest University Center for Injury Biomechanics (CIB). Her passion for injury biomechanics and automobile safety continued to foster while continuing research in pedestrian safety via human body modeling during a part-time internship at the CIB the following spring. Additionally, Sophie’s previous research project at NC State examined how bone and muscle are affected by altered forelimb loading and unloading in a rat model. In another summer research internship, Sophie utilized finite element modeling to assess injuries in pediatric populations at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Center for Injury Research and Prevention (CIRP) after her third year. Sophie utilized her knowledge of child safety and child restraint systems to propose research in her National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) application in her final semester at NC State. She graduated with her B.S. in Biomedical and Health Sciences Engineering in December 2018, joined the CAB in January 2019, and was awarded this prestigious fellowship during her first semester at UVA. She is currently involved in both computational and experimental projects. Sophie’s ongoing research investigates lumbar spine injuries due to combined compression-flexion loading, in an effort to quantify injury risk in motor vehicle crashes for humans and other commonly used human surrogates in the field (i.e. human body models, ATDs).