36 - "Life is Motion - An integrated view on the neuromuscular system"
Host:
Professor Oliver Rohrle
Founding Director of the Institute for Modelling and Simulation of Biomechanical Systems
Professor for Continuum Biomechanics and Mechanobiology at the University of Stuttgart
Abstract:
Motion is a defining feature of human life allowing us to perform various tasks. Motion is typically the consequence of the chemo-electro-mechanical properties of muscles. Moreover, muscles can act as interface between the brain and the environment. Investigating the neuromuscular system requires an integrated approach for studying the biophysical basis of human motion. That is the combination of experimental methods, computational models and data science. While we perform research in all three areas, we focus within this talk on in silico models, particularly on continuum-mechanical, volumetric models of the neuromuscular system.
Short Bio:
Professor Rohrle is a Fellow of the Stuttgart Center for Simulation Science and a Senior Research Expert at the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation (Fraunhofer IPA) in Stuttgart. Since 2021 he also serves as Dean for the Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering. He received a Master of Science in Mathematics at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, USA (1999) and his Diploma in “Wirtschaftsmathematik (Mathematics and Economical Affairs)” at the University of Ulm (2000). After his PhD in Applied Mathematics at the University of Colorado at Boulder, USA (2004), he spent 4 years as a research scientist at the Auckland Bioengineering Institute at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, before returning to Germany in 2008. He received numerous awards, e.g. the Richard von Mises prize of the GAMM (Society of Applied Mathematics and Mechanics) in 2011. Further he was awarded prestigious ERC grants, an ERC Starting Grant in 2011, an ERC Proof-of-Concept Grant in 2016, and an ERC Advanced Grant in 2022.