Stapp Student Award

Posted 11/12/2008
UMTRI Doctoral Studies Program student wins Stapp Student Award

Chia-Yuan (Mark) Chang, a Ph.D. student in UMTRI's Doctoral Studies Program, won a Stapp Student Award at the fifty-second Stapp Car Crash Conference earlier this month in San Antonio, Texas.

Chang's paper, which he presented at the conference, was awarded second place among nine student papers submitted to the Stapp Student Award competition. (In the photo above, Chang receives the award from professor Albert King, general conference chair.) The paper is entitled "Development of a Finite Element Model to Study the Effects of Muscle Forces on Knee-Thigh-Hip Injuries in Frontal Crashes," and was coauthored by Jonathan Rupp, Larry Schneider, and professor Noboru Kikuchi of the University of Michigan (U-M) Department of Mechanical Engineering.

Chang is pursuing a doctoral degree in mechanical engineering through U-M's College of Engineering, and is conducting his research in UMTRI's Biosciences Division with the support of UMTRI's Doctoral Studies Program (DSP). The DSP was established by the U-M Office of the Vice President for Research in conjunction with UMTRI to support doctoral students who conduct their dissertation research at UMTRI with the collaboration of U-M and UMTRI faculty. Chang's doctoral committee is co-chaired by professor Kikuchi and research professor Schneider.

Also at the conference, Jonathan Rupp presented a paper entitled "Characterization of Knee-Thigh-Hip Response in Frontal Impacts Using Biomechanical Testing and Computational Simulation," which was coauthored by Carl Miller, Matt Reed, Nathaniel Madura, Kathy Klinich, and Larry Schneider.

Several other staff members in UMTRI's Biosciences Division attended the Stapp conference, including Leda Ricci and Nichole Ritchie.

The Stapp Car Crash Conference is the premier forum for presentation of research in impact biomechanics, human injury tolerance, and related fields that advance the knowledge of land-vehicle crash injury protection. The conference provides an opportunity to participate in free discussion regarding the causes and mechanisms of injury, experimental methods and tools for use in impact biomechanics research, and the development of new concepts for reducing injuries and fatalities in automobile crashes.