{"id":141526,"date":"2025-02-04T10:42:16","date_gmt":"2025-02-04T16:42:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/uwm.edu\/news\/?p=141526"},"modified":"2025-02-13T12:22:19","modified_gmt":"2025-02-13T18:22:19","slug":"slavens-honored-with-governments-highest-award-for-early-career-scientists-and-engineers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uwm.edu\/news\/slavens-honored-with-governments-highest-award-for-early-career-scientists-and-engineers\/","title":{"rendered":"Slavens honored with government’s highest award for early career scientists and engineers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brooke Slavens, Richard and Joanne Grigg Professor of Mechanical Engineering at 51ÁÔÆæ, was recently awarded the prestigious Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers<\/a>. The award is highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government on outstanding scientists and engineers early in their career.<\/p>\n

She was nominated by the National Institutes of Health for her pioneering research on shoulder pain experienced by both pediatric and adult manual wheelchair users. In addition to wheelchair mobility, Slavens\u2019 expertise includes upper extremity modeling and rehabilitation engineering.<\/p>\n

Slavens<\/a> is the second 51ÁÔÆæ faculty member honored with the early career award. Krista Lisdahl, professor of psychology, won the award in 2012<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A majority of people who use wheelchairs propel themselves manually rather than using a powered wheelchair.\u00a0The biomechanics of shoulder and wrist pain in adult manual wheelchair users is well documented. But Slavens\u2019 work is bringing new information to light on the understudied upper-extremity joint dynamics in children.<\/p>\n

The work is revealing not only how using manual wheelchairs affects children\u2019s joints, but also how upper-arm stress and the resulting pain unfolds over a lifetime.<\/p>\n

Slavens discovered that adults who sustained spinal cord injuries as children report less shoulder pain than those injured in adulthood, even though they typically use wheelchairs for a longer time.<\/p>\n

To investigate this, she is leveraging advanced software and ultrasound imaging to explore how propulsion patterns differ between children and adults and whether these differences explain the variation in shoulder pain.<\/p>\n

The current rehabilitation guidelines for preserving the upper limb following spinal cord injury were established for adults and are often not effective. Slavens aims to develop tailored clinical guidelines for children while simultaneously refining the guidelines for adults based on her findings.<\/p>\n

Among her findings from other studies are:<\/p>\n