Mechanical Engineering Research

The Biomechatronics, Assistive Devices, Gait Engineering and Rehabilitation Laboratory at the University of Wisconsin – Madison (UW BADGER Lab) applies scientific and engineering principles to promote quantitative assessment, restored function, and physical recovery after orthopedic or neurological injury.

Professor Crone studies biomechanics at the cellular and multicellular scales. Her lab has developed a platform that allows the production of a range of micropatterns on substrates of varying stiffness to study cardiomyocytes (CMs) and skeletal muscle cells differentiated from stem cells.

The Eriten Research Group conducts research that involves the study of Contact Mechanics, Nonlinear Dynamics, and Advanced Modeling and Simulations. Laboratory activity focuses on a Multiscale approach involving the following three areas: Materials modeling, Experiments and diagnostics, and System identification and modeling.

The Franck Lab is an experimental mechanics laboratory specializing in the development of new experimental techniques at the micro- and nanoscale. Their goal is to provide unprecedented full-field 3D access to real-time imaging and deformation measurements in complex soft matter and cellular systems.

The Physics-bAsed Neutralization of Threats to Human tissuEs and oRgans (PANTHER) Program is an interdisciplinary research hub based at UW-Madison focused on the understanding, detection, and prevention of traumatic brain injuries.

The central hypothesis of the Henak Lab is that the tissue-scale mechanical environment can be used to understand and predict orthopedic diseases.  To address this hypothesis, the Henak Lab uses a combination of multiscale experimental and computational techniques.

The Notbohm Research Group studies mechanics of soft materials. Current areas of interest are in mechanics of fibrous materials, cell-matrix interactions, and collective cell migration. This work draws on the fields of engineering mechanics, soft matter physics, applied math, and cell biology.

The UW Cardiovascular Fluid Dynamics Laboratory focuses its research on fluid dynamics analysis of physiological and pathological flows using a combination of medical imaging, additive manufacturing, and computational fluid dynamics.

The mission of the Biomedical Advances in Medicine Lab is to enhance personalized treatments of musculoskeletal injuries and disease. This mission is motivated by need to account for the wide patient-to-patient variability that is not always considered in standard treatments.

The Computational Mechanics and Multiphysics Group models emergent phenomena in materials (structural and biological) that are driven by mechanics and multiphysics. Microstructural evolution, patterning processes and bifurcations are of special interest.

The UW Neuromuscular Biomechanics Laboratory conducts research on the biomechanics and neuromuscular coordination of human movement, with applications in orthopedics and rehabilitation.