Dr. Brooke Odle, assistant professor of engineering at Hope College, has received an “Up and Comer” Award from the American Society of Biomechanics (ASB).
The award is intended to foster mentoring and networking of early-career faculty and post-doctoral trainees with ASB Fellows of similar research interests. The one-year award includes travel funds to meet with a mentor who is an ASB Fellow and develop a plan to move the award recipient’s research agenda forward, as well as free registration to the society’s Aug. 10-13 Virtual 45th Annual Meeting.
Odle, who is a biomedical engineer, joined the Hope faculty in 2020 after a year at the college as a faculty fellow. Her research focuses on biomechanics and assistive technology for people with disabilities. She has had multiple publications in refereed scientific journals and has made presentations about her research at national meetings of professional associations, and has received a variety of external grants in support of her research. She mentors Hope students who pursue engineering research, and teaches courses including Engineering Computing, Biomechanical Systems, Dynamic Systems Laboratory and Mechanics of Materials Laboratory.
She graduated from the University of Pittsburgh with a Bachelor of Science degree in bioengineering in 2006. She went on to complete a Master of Science degree in biomedical engineering from the New Jersey Institute of Technology in 2009; and a Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from the New Jersey Institute of Technology and Rutgers University Biomedical and Health Sciences in 2014.
From 2015 through 2019, Odle was a postdoctoral scholar and fellow in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Case Western Reserve University. She conducted research in the Motional Study Laboratory at the Advanced Platform Technology Center at Louis Stokes Cleveland VA Medical Center, and is also an Investigator at the Advanced Platform Technology Center.
As an “Up and Comer” Award recipient, Odle will be mentored by Dr. Darryl Thelen, who is the Bernard A. and Frances M. Weideman Professor and the John Bollinger Chair of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Thelen was a member of the Hope engineering faculty from 1994 to 2001.
The American Society of Biomechanics was founded in 1977 to encourage and foster the exchange of information and ideas among biomechanists working in different disciplines and to facilitate the development of biomechanics as a basic and applied science. ASB has a membership of approximately 850 academic researchers, clinicians, scientists, students, and industry members working to solve basic and applied problems in the realm of biomechanics and to improve understanding of the workings of biological systems. ASB members are organized into five primary discipline categories: biological sciences, exercise and sports science, health sciences, ergonomics and human factors, and engineering and applied science.