Kathleen DeSantis Klinich

Kathleen DeSantis Klinich is an assistant research scientist in UMTRI's Biosciences Division. She earned a Ph. D. in mechanical engineering from the University of Michigan and B.S. and M.S. degrees in mechanical engineering, as well as a B. A. in technical writing, from Case Western Reserve University. Prior to joining UMTRI in 1996, she worked as a research engineer for TRC, Inc. at NHTSA's Vehicle Research and Test Center (VRTC).

Dr. Klinich's research interests focus on protecting occupants in motor-vehicle crashes. She has experience in the analysis of motor-vehicle crashes and crash databases, crash dummy design, laboratory reconstruction of real-world loading events, injury criteria development, occupant-anthropometry and posture evaluation, engineering analysis of Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS), child-passenger-safety issues evaluation, and finite element modeling.

Dr. Klinich is the lead author of several papers that have won high honors, including the Best Paper Award of the 2000 Conference for the Association for the Advancement of Automotive Medicine, the UMTRI Best Publication Award for 2002 and 2005, and the Stapp Conference Student Paper Award for 2002 and 2004.