{"id":5478,"date":"2016-12-09T14:17:46","date_gmt":"2016-12-09T19:17:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/groups.etown.edu\/news\/?p=5478"},"modified":"2016-12-09T14:17:46","modified_gmt":"2016-12-09T19:17:46","slug":"how-humans-walk-when-using-a-cell-phone-subject-of-post-grad-engineering-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/2016\/12\/09\/how-humans-walk-when-using-a-cell-phone-subject-of-post-grad-engineering-research\/","title":{"rendered":"How humans walk when using a cell phone subject of post-grad engineering research"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Untitled-1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

When Kelly Seymour \u201912 was working on post-graduate research at the University of Delaware, more than one person asked her former engineering professor, Kurt DeGoede, if Elizabethtown College could \u201csend them more Kelly Seymours.\u201d<\/p>\n

They recognized that she \u201cwas well trained in engineering, an outstanding communicator and could write effectively — strong positives for entering graduate school and having that level of research,\u201d DeGoede said.<\/p>\n

In turn, Seymour credits her \u201cwell-rounded\u201d liberal arts education, professors taking a personal interest in students and having the opportunity for independent research. \u201cCompared to my peers I was much more prepared for technical writing and presenting,\u201d she said. \u201cAt Elizabethtown, an engineering degree wasn\u2019t just math and science; I also took writing courses.\u201d<\/p>\n

Recently, Seymour, along with DeGoede and others, garnered significant media attention<\/a> for research published this past summer in the Journal of Motor Behavior. The paper, \u201cCellular Telephone Dialing Influences Kinematic and Spatiotemporal Gait Parameters in Healthy Adult\u201d — or the way people walk when they are using a cell phone, was part of Seymour\u2019s master\u2019s thesis.<\/p>\n

\n

At Elizabethtown, an engineering degree wasn\u2019t just math and science.”<\/h2>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The research, said DeGoede, was in the realm of studies he had done at the University of Michigan on tripping, falling and arresting the fall. At Elizabethtown, Seymour had an interest in biomechanics and completed her senior project in DeGoede\u2019s Biomechanics Lab. Then, at Delaware, Seymour began her collaboration with Dr. Jill Startzell Higginson, conducting the research described here; she brought on DeGoede to serve on her thesis committee.<\/p>\n

In the research, study subjects walked on a treadmill at a self-selected speed and were asked to maintain that speed while texting or tapping in a phone number, DeGoede said. \u201cThe subjects had a more flexed knee gait, as if they are on a slippery surface like an icy sidewalk.\u201d Their stride got wider, as well, increasing their base of support. \u201cThis helps us have a better understanding of how we navigate dual tasks,\u201d said DeGoede.<\/p>\n

The project, said Seymour, became a unique collaboration between engineering and psychology when the researchers came to understand that all subjects from varied backgrounds act the same in this instance. We looked into how \u201cengineering principles apply to the personal body,\u201d Seymour said. \u201cThere was a human interaction component.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although the research was published in July, media didn\u2019t pick up on it until November, Seymour said. Her first call was from the Daily Mail in the United Kingdom. After that \u201ca ton of media\u201d contacted her — TV stations in England, radio in Scotland, print articles in Canada.<\/p>\n

Seymour is now employed in quality engineering with Terumo Medical Corporation in Elkton, Maryland.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Kelly Seymour \u201912 was working on post-graduate research at the University of Delaware, more than one person asked her former engineering professor, Kurt DeGoede, if Elizabethtown College could \u201csend them more Kelly Seymours.\u201d They recognized that she \u201cwas well trained in engineering, an outstanding communicator and could write effectively — strong positives for entering […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":5479,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[178,764],"tags":[490,70,1128],"class_list":["post-5478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-achievements","category-research-and-academics","tag-achievements-2","tag-engineering","tag-feature","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5478"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5478\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5480,"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5478\/revisions\/5480"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}