News
Recent and archived news about OEB Lab faculty and students
2025
New article A data-driven approach to classifying manual material handling tasks using markerless motion capture and recurrent neural networks by Sunwook Kim and Maury Nussbaum was published in International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics. (May 2025)
Lingyu Li, an M.S. program student, successfully defended his thesis, "Evaluating Model-Estimated Shoulder Muscle Activity During Overhead Work with Varied Task Demands and Exoskeleton Use." He will continue his academic journey in the PhD program in ISE at Virginia Tech. Congratulations, Lingyu! (May 2025)

A Ph.D. candidate and OEB Lab member, Wallace "Wally" Morris, successfully defended his dissertation, "A Postural Exposure Assessment of Dental Health Professionals and the Effectiveness of Exoskeletons to Reduce Ergonomic Risk in Dentistry." Congratulations, Dr. Morris! (May 2025)
New article Passive back support exoskeletons do not effectively reduce physical demands during simulated floor tiling by Sunwook Kim and Maury Nussbaum was published in Applied Ergonomics. (May 2025)

A Ph.D. candidate and OEB Lab member, Shafiqual Islam, successfully defended his dissertation, "Virtual Reality (VR) in Occupational Training: Enhancing Training Performance and Overcoming Challenges in Forklift Driving." Congratulations, Dr. Islam! (May 2025)
Several OEB graduate students guided local high school students through hands-on activities highlighting the field of biomechanics on 2025 National Biomechanics Day.

In partnership with Biomedical Engineering and Mechanics at VT, local high school students visited campus on the 2025 National Biomechanics Day! Several OEB Lab graduate students, including Ahmad Raza Usmani, Sakshi Taori, Lingyu Li, Feyisayo Akinwande, and Mahdis Tajdari guided the high school students through hands-on activities highlighting the field of biomechanics. Check out the full video! (April 2025)
New article Perspectives of Mining Personnel on Adopting Occupational Exoskeletons: Comparisons Between a Developed and a Developing Country by Sunwook Kim and Maury Nussbaum was published in Mining, Metallurgy & Exploration. (April 2025)

Congratulations to Dr. Sol Lim for being selected as an Outstanding New Assistant Professor for the 2025 College of Engineering Dean's Awards of Excellence!
(April 2025)
New article Sensitivity to Vibrotactile Stimulation in the Hand and Wrist: Effects of Motion, Temporal Patterns, and Biological Sex by Sol Lim was published in Human Factors. (March 2025)
New article Cognitive workload assessment during VR forklift training by Sunwook Kim, Maury Nussbaum, and Sol Lim was published in International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics. (March 2025)
Three (3) new articles were published by Sunwook Kim and Maury Nussbaum (March 2025):
- Passive arm-support and back-support exoskeletons have distinct phase-dependent effects on physical demands during cart pushing and pulling: An exploratory study in Applied Ergonomics
- Estimating dynamic external hand forces during overhead work with and without an exoskeleton: Evaluating an approach using electromyography signals and random forest regression was published in International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics
- Understanding the drivers of and barriers to adopting passive back- and arm-support exoskeletons in construction: Results from interviews and short-term field testing was published in International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics
New article Gait variability predicts post-fatigue obstacle course performance among military cadets: An exploratory study by Maury Nussbaum was published in Applied Ergonomics. (March 2025)
New article Older workers spend less time in extreme trunk and upper-arm postures during order-picking tasks: Results from field testing by Maury Nussbaum was published in Applied Ergonomics. (January 2025)
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2024
New article Older workers spend less time in extreme trunk and upper-arm postures during order-picking tasks: Results from field testing by Maury Nussbaum was published in Applied Ergonomics. (January 2025)
New article Classification algorithms trained on simple (symmetric) lifting data perform poorly in predicting hand loads during complex (free-dynamic) lifting tasks by Sol Lim was published in Applied Ergonomics. (December 2024)
New article Exposures to select risk factors can be estimated from a continuous stream of inertial sensor measurements during a variety of lifting-lowering tasks by Sol Lim was published in Ergonomics. (December 2024)
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OEB Lab Co-Director Mike Madigan was featured in Virginia Tech News. The article highlighted Dr. Madigan and his former student's (Youngjae Lee) research project, which used wearable voice recorders to capture real-world data on balance loss incidents among older adults.
(October 2024)
New article Use of a Wearable Electromyography Armband to Detect Lift-Lower Tasks and Classify Hand Loads by Sol Lim was published in Applied Ergonomics. (September 2024)
New article Barriers and Benefits of Online Group Exercise Programs for Older Adults by Sol Lim was published in Journal of Applied Gerontology. (September 2024)
New article Changes in forklift driving performance and postures among novices resulting from training using a high-fidelity virtual reality simulator: An exploratory study by Sunwook Kim, Maury Nussbaum and Sol Lim was published in International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics. (September 2024)
New article Understanding contributing factors to exoskeleton use-intention in construction: A decision tree approach using results from an online survey by Sunwook Kim and Maury Nussbaum was published in Ergonomics. (September 2024)
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Alex Noll, an M.S. program student, successfully defended his thesis, Quantifying the Reliability of Performance Time and User Perceptions Obtained from Passive Exoskeleton Evaluations. He will begin his career as an FTL (Future Technical Leaders) Systems Engineer at Northrop Grumman in Baltimore, MD. Congratulations, Alex! (August 2024)

A Ph.D. candidate, Youngjae Lee, successfully defended his dissertation, "Non-Treadmill Trip Training - Laboratory Efficacy, Validation of Inertial Measurement Units, and Tripping Kinematics in the Real-World," on April 30, 2024. Congratulations, Dr. Lee! (May 2024)
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2023
OEB Lab Co-Director Maury Nussbaum and his Ph.D students Ahmad Raza Usmani, Wally Morris, and Aanu Ojelade, were featured on their exoskeleton effectiveness research with construction workers in Virginia Tech Video (October 2023).