Thurmon E. Lockhart

Thurmon E. Lockhart is an American biomedical engineer, researcher and educator. He is the Inaugural MORE Foundation Professor of Life in Motion at Arizona State University, a guest professor at Ghent University in Belgium and, serves as a research affiliate faculty at Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science. He is an associate editor of Annals of Biomedical Engineering and academic and guest editor of the Sensors journal He has worked significantly to bring research to practice with various businesses to reduce falls.

Lockhart's work has been focused on the identification and quantification of sensorimotor deficits and movement disorders associated with aging and neurological disorders on fall accidents. He has worked on several projects concerning human locomotion, wearable sensors, gait and posture. Translating his research, he pioneered a training technique to reduce falls by using the 'Slip Simulator' technology. The system is currently used by various companies to reduce occupational falls.

Education Lockhart was raised in South Korea. He moved to the United States in 1979. After completing his B.S. in Industrial and Systems Engineering from Texas Tech University in 1992, Lockhart received a M.S. in 1997 and a Ph.D. in 2000, both from Texas Tech University.

In 2008, Lockhart was appointed as a guest professor at Ghent University in Ghent, Belgium. In 2014, he joined the Barrow Neurological Institute as an adjunct professor in the department of neurobiology. Lockhart has been a research affiliate professor at college of medicine at Mayo Clinic Arizona since 2017.

In the late 1990s, Lockhart studied the biomechanics of slips and falls, how floor surface and visual field obstruction impact falls and how aging affects the likelihood of falls. His research on these topics continued into early 2000s. Some of his research during this time studied how slips and falls differ across different age groups. In early 2000s, he began studying gait and posture, and how the two are connected to slips and falls. This work led to several articles on the topics of gait and posture. In 2003, he wrote a paper entitled 'Effects of age-related gait changes on the biomechanics of slips and falls', modeling the human responses to slips and falls for the first time and pioneering the slip-perturbation method to study fall accidents during walking.

Some of his research during the mid 2000s dealt with the topic of driving: visual characteristics of elderly drivers related to discomfort-glare responses and accommodation processes. In 2001, Lockhart began working with Toyota corporation on a project that lasted four years and resulted in development of international ergonomics standard for Intelligent Transportation System for elderly populations. Some of his research in the early 2000s and mid 2000s also dealt with how carrying load can affect the likelihood of falling.

Lockhart developed a system that can reduce occupational fall injuries, called the Slip Simulator, which is a training equipment with a 9 foot tall frame and a safety harness. Trainees are made to walk on the simulator. After they are comfortable walking in the simulator, the pathway is made slick with water. The trainee then keeps falling on the surface while trying to walk, being caught by the safety harness. The simulator is based on Lockhart's research that suggests that the only way to train people to avoid falling is to put them in motions of falling or experiencing realistic slips and trips and falls to better understand our limitations in balance maintenance abilities. For their work on Slip Simulator and training systems, Lockhart and his colleagues were awarded the Alexander C. William, Jr. Design Award.

In the early 2010s, Lockhart's research began incorporating the use of advanced computer technology in his studies. He studied the applications of virtual reality for gait training in older adults. He developed a fall risk prediction model that used input from wearable sensors and an automated gait assessment algorithm that used input from inertial sensors. He also studied how mobile phones can be used in predicting and preventing falls. Further work in this area led to the development of Lockhart Monitor, an iOS application for gait and postural stability assessments for fall prone individuals. The application takes data from inertial measurement unit (IMU) on a smartphone, or an IMU worn elsewhere on the patient, to monitor activity over an extended period of time on a smartphone. The applications also takes input from accelerometer and gyroscope located in a smartphone to measure balance ability as well as walking ability.

In the late 2010s, Lockhart began studying mobility and fall risk in patients with Parkinson's disease. His research addresses various neurorehabilitation assessments that are relevant for injury prevention and functional improvements. His work has been expanded to include community dwelling older adults in terms of designing smart homes and smart wearables that could significantly improve mobility in older adults. Some of his research has also studied how obesity can impact the likelihood and risk of falls in both young and old people.

Lockhart has collaborated with several organizations for research and development in the area of fall prevention and occupational safety. He has worked with National Science Foundation, National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, Office of Naval Research, Los Alamos National Laboratory and Whitaker Foundation. In early 2014, he began a collaboration with ITT, for the development of the new Night-Vision system.

Awards and honors

2001 - Special Emphasis Research Career Award (SERCA K01) – CDC/NIH 2002 - Faculty Affiliate Research Award, Virginia Tech Center for Gerontology 2003 - Dean's Award of Excellence for Outstanding Assistant Professor, Virginia Tech 2003 - Biomedical Engineering Grant Investigator – The Whitaker Foundation 2005 - Best Paper Award, Liberty Mutual 2007 - Disability Research Award, Americans with Disabilities Act 2008 - Alexander C. William, Jr., Design Award, HFES Society 2008 - Faculty Fellow, college of engineering, Virginia Tech 2013 - Dean's Award of Excellence in Research, Virginia Tech

Publications Books An Introductions to Statistics for Biomedical Engineering. .

Selected articles

Lockhart, T.E., Frames, C.W., Soangra, R., and Lieberman A., Effects of Obesity and Fall Risk on Gait and Posture of Community- Dwelling Older Adults. International Journal of Prognostics and Health Management, ISSN 2153-2648, 2019 019