∙ FISA/PVA Distinguished Professor in the Department of Rehabilitation Science and Technology, University of Pittsburgh ∙ Assistant Vice Chancellor for Research for STEM and Health Sciences Collaboration, University of Pittsburgh ∙ Founder and Director, Human Engineering Research Laboratories
Rory A. Cooper is an American bioengineer who currently serves as FISA/PVA Distinguished Professor, Past Chair, in the Department of Rehabilitation Science and Technology and professor of bioengineering, physical medicine and rehabilitation, and orthopedic surgery at the University of Pittsburgh.[1][2][3] He is also assistant vice chancellor for research for STEM and Health Sciences Collaboration,[4] and a National Medal of Technology and Innovation Laureate.[5] He holds an adjunct faculty position at the Robotics Institute of Carnegie Mellon University, and is an invited professor at Xi'an Jiaotong University in Xi'an, China.[6][7]
Cooper enlisted in the United States Army in 1976 and was assigned to the 3rd Ordnance Battalion, 32nd Air Defense Artillery Command with U.S. Army Europe and was later attached to the 5th Signal Command, USAREUR, and the U.S. Military Community Activity Worms, 21st Support Command.[11]
While stationed in Germany in 1980, he was hit by a bus while riding a bicycle. As a result, he became paralyzed from the waist down.[12]
From 1989 to 1994, Cooper was an assistant professor in bioengineering at Sacramento State University.[15][16] In 1994, Cooper became an associate professor at the Department of Rehabilitation Science and Technology in the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh (obtaining full professorship in 1998).[17] Also in 1994, he founded the Human Engineering Research Laboratories, which includes the VA Center for Wheelchairs and Assistive Robotics Engineering.[18][19] He served as chair of the Department of Rehabilitation Science and Technology at the University of Pittsburgh from 1997 to 2018.[20]
Cooper has published just over 370 peer-reviewed journal articles.[23][24][25] He is the author of Rehabilitation Engineering Applied to Mobility and Manipulation[26] and Wheelchair Selection and Configuration[27] and co-edited An Introduction to Rehabilitation Engineering,[28]Care of the Combat Amputee,[29]Warrior Transition Leader: Medical Rehabilitation Handbook.,[30] and Promoting Successful Reintegration.[31]
In 2014, Secretary of the Army John M. McHugh appointed Cooper a civilian aide to the Secretary of the Army.[35]
Inventions and patents
Cooper holds 25 patents in wheelchair technology.[36] He is the inventor of many advanced mobility devices and assistive technologies. Among these are MEBot, a stair-climbing wheelchair;[37] PneuChair, a wheelchair powered entirely by compressed air;[38] and Virtual Seating Coach, a smartphone app to control power wheelchair seating systems.[39][40]
The July 26, 2010 issue of Popular Science profiled Cooper, and a photo of him with a robotic wheelchair he invented was the issue's centerfold.[41] Cooper and his inventions were also the cover story of the May 2017 issue of New Mobility.[42] Additionally, Cooper was featured as the cover story of the September 2019 issue of Inventors Digest.[43]
In 2021, Cooper appeared in two articles discussing his inventions. He was in Insight Into Diversity on August 18 discussing the evolution of assistive technology.[44] Cooper discusses more innovations in a World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) feature in August 2021.[45]
Cooper is an advocate for diversity within the invention community and in 2020 spoke to the U.S. Congress about American inventors' lack of diversity.[46]
At the 1988 Paralympic Games in Seoul, South Korea, Cooper received a bronze medal in the 4x400-meter wheelchair relay.[48]
Cooper was on the steering committee for the 1996 Paralympic Scientific Congress held in Atlanta, GA, and was the Sports Scientist for the 2008 U.S. Paralympic Team in Beijing, China.[49] He also received the 2013 International Paralympic Scientific Achievement Award.[50] He volunteered his expertise as a member of the US Paralympic staff in 1992, 1996, and 2008.[51] Cooper has been selected to serve on the International Paralympic Committee Science and Research Working Group and the VISTA 2021 Scientific Committee.[52]
Cooper served as the chair of the Local Organizing Committee for the National Veterans Wheelchair Games held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1998 and 2011.
Cooper has been a competitor in the National Veterans Wheelchair Game since 1983 winning over 200 medals in total in such sports a slalom, track, swimming, table-tennis, and hand-cycle.
Cooper, on his handcycle, appeared in the center of the October/November 2020 issue of AARP Magazine.[69]
In 2021, Cooper was awarded the Sigma Xi John P. McGovern Award, which recognizes achievements by a scientist or engineer that transcend their career as a researcher [70]
For his extensive contributions to wheelchair technology that have expanded mobility and reduced second hand injuries for millions of people with disabilities, Cooper was awarded the 2022 Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Biomedical Engineering Award in Glasgow, Scotland.[71] In addition to the award, he was also awarded the 2022 RESNA Colin McLaurin distinguished Lectureship.[72] At the 2022 AUSA Conference, Civilian Aides to the Secretary to the Army Program, which Cooper is a part of, received The General Creighton W. Abrams Medal. The award is for groups or individuals for exceptional service to the US Army.[73]
In 2023, Dr. Cooper was inducted into the National Inventor Hall of Fame. He is being inducted with two patents. The first is No. 6,276,705 which is the Wheelchair hand rim and the second is No. 8,264,458 which is the Variable Compliance Joystick with Compensation Algorithms.
Parasports are sports played by people with a disability, including physical and intellectual disabilities. Some parasports are forms of adapted physical activities from existing non-disabled sports, while others have been specifically created for persons with a disability and do not have a non-disabled equivalent. Disability exists in four categories: physical, mental, permanent and temporary. At a competitive level, disability sport classifications are applied to allow people of varying abilities to face similar opposition.
Robert Heath Dennard was an American electrical engineer and inventor.
Shafrira Goldwasser is an Israeli-American computer scientist and winner of the Turing Award in 2012. She is the RSA Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology; a professor of mathematical sciences at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel; the director of the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing at the University of California, Berkeley; and co-founder and chief scientist of Duality Technologies.
Wheelchair basketball is a style of basketball played using a sports wheelchair. The International Wheelchair Basketball Federation (IWBF) is the governing body for this sport. It is recognized by the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) as the sole competent authority in wheelchair basketball worldwide. FIBA has recognized IWBF under Article 53 of its General Statutes.
Clifford E. Brubaker is Dean of the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh. Brubaker is also a professor at that institution and an adjunct professor at both Xian Jiaotong University and Carnegie Mellon University.
David M. Brienza is a professor of rehabilitation science at the University of Pittsburgh School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences. He holds additional professorial appointments in bioengineering and electrical engineering.
Rehabilitation engineering is the systematic application of engineering sciences to design, develop, adapt, test, evaluate, apply, and distribute technological solutions to problems confronted by individuals with disabilities. These individuals may have experienced a spinal cord injury, brain trauma, or any other debilitating injury or disease. Functional areas addressed through rehabilitation engineering may include mobility, communications, hearing, vision, and cognition, and activities associated with employment, independent living, education, and integration into the community.
Rehabilitation Engineering and Assistive Technology Society of North America (RESNA) is an association of people with an interest in technology and disability. Its mission statement notes that RESNA's mission is to improve the potential of people with disabilities to achieve their goals through the use of technology through promoting research, development, education, advocacy and provision of technology; and by supporting the assistive technology service providers engaged in these activities.
Arogyaswami J. Paulraj is an Indian-American electrical engineer, academic. He is a Professor Emeritus in the Dept. of Elect. Engg. at Stanford University.
Assistive technology service providers help individuals with disabilities acquire and use appropriate Assistive Technology (AT) to help them participate in activities of daily living, employment and education.
Wheelchair racing is the racing of wheelchairs in track and road races. Wheelchair racing is open to athletes with any qualifying type of disability, including leg amputees, spinal cord injuries, and cerebral palsy. Athletes are classified in accordance with the nature and severity of their disability or combinations of disabilities. Like running, it can take place on a track or as a road race. The main competitions take place at the Summer Paralympics which wheelchair racing and athletics has been a part of since 1960. Competitors compete in specialized wheelchairs which allow the athletes to reach speeds of 30 km/h (18.6 mph) or more. It is one of the most prominent forms of Paralympic athletics.
The Swanson School of Engineering is the engineering school of the University of Pittsburgh in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1846, the Swanson School of Engineering is the second or third oldest in the United States.
A wheelchair trainer or wheelchair treadmill is an apparatus that allows a manual wheelchair user to simulate linear (translational) travel while remaining stationary in a manner similar to an ambulatory person walking or running on a treadmill or a cyclist pedaling a bicycle on a bicycle trainer. The rear wheelchair wheels are placed in contact with vertical or horizontal rollers which may also be attached to flywheels, mechanical resistance or braking mechanisms, motors and various speed and force sensors. Flywheels may be sized to provide a user of a certain mass with a rotational inertia equivalent to their translational (linear) inertia in order to more realistically approximate actual wheelchair propulsion.
The IEEE Biomedical Engineering Award is a Technical Field Award of the IEEE given annually for outstanding contributions to the field of biomedical engineering. It was established in 2010.
Rob A. Rutenbar is an American academic noted for contributions to software tools that automate analog integrated circuit design, and custom hardware platforms for high-performance automatic speech recognition. He is Senior Vice Chancellor for Research at the University of Pittsburgh, where he leads the university's strategic and operational vision for research and innovation.
Robert W. Heath Jr. is an American electrical engineer, researcher, educator, wireless technology expert, and a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of California, San Diego. He is also the president and CEO of MIMO Wireless Inc. He was the founding director of the Situation Aware Vehicular Engineering Systems initiative.
Ervin Sejdic is North York General Hospital's Research Chair in Artificial Intelligence for Health Outcomes. He focuses on biomedical signal processing, gait analysis, swallowing difficulties, advanced information systems in medicine, rehabilitation engineering, assistive technologies and anticipatory medical devices. He was previously a researcher at the Swanson School of Engineering, University of Pittsburgh, where he directs a research laboratory focused on engineering developments in medicine. His research has focused on creating computational biomarkers indicative of age- and disease-related changes in functional outcomes such as swallowing, gait and handwriting. In particular, he aims to develop clinically relevant solutions by fostering innovation in mechatronic systems that can be translated to bedside care. Due to his contributions in signal processing and biomedical engineering, Sejdic has been named to editorial positions of IEEE Signal Processing Magazine, BioMedical Engineering Online and IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering.
Paul Hunter Peckham is a professor of biomedical engineering and orthopedics at the Case Western Reserve University, and holds eight patents related to neural prosthetics. Peckham's research involves developing prostheses to restore function in the upper extremities for paralyzed individuals with spinal cord injury.
Fabrisia Ambrosio is a Brazilian-born physical therapist and researcher. She is the Director of Rehabilitation for UPMC International and an associate professor in the Department of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation at the University of Pittsburgh. Her research focuses on developing regenerative technologies to prevent or reverse the effect of age and/or environmental exposures on stem cell and tissue function. In 2022, Ambrosio was elected a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering for "outstanding contributions to the novel field of Regenerative Rehabilitation, integrating applied biophysics and cellular therapeutics to optimize tissue function."
↑ Warrior Transition Leader Medical Rehabilitation Handbook (Firsted.). Ft. Detrick MD: United States Department of Defense, Defense Dept, Borden Institute. October 2011. p.208. ISBN9780160893667.
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