Thank you to all the members of the various Awards Committees that served in 2022.  It was my pleasure to administer the award process for 13 ASB award types in 2022. Please see the website for a full list of winners: Award Winners Spotlight – American Society of Biomechanics (asbweb.org).

It is my pleasure to announce that the newly appointed Awards Chairperson is David Lipps.  David is an Associate Professor of Movement Science and the Director of the Musculoskeletal Biomechanics and Imaging Laboratory (MBIL) at the University of Michigan School of Kinesiology. We thank Rumit Singh Kakar for his service to ASB during his time as Awards Chair and Awards Chair-elect.

2023 brings some new and hopefully helpful changes to the ASB Awards processes.

• Student Travel Awards. The monetary portion of the award was changed to be a complimentary registration to the yearly ASB meeting, and the submission process is now embedded in the abstract submission form. There will be no more need for advisor letters, but students applying for the award are required to be ASB student members.
• Award Due Dates. Individual award due dates are no longer tied to the abstract deadline. See the ASB award webpages for specific information on deadlines for 2023.
• Award Rubrics. Additionally, in our efforts to improve award transparency, please look out for the publishing of standardized award rubrics for each award later in 2023.

Award winner spotlight – Pre-doc and Early Career Award winners from 2020 and 2021

2020 ASB Early Career Achievement Award

Eni Halilaj

Personal impact of award: Receiving the award was humbling given how inspiring past recipients, the selection committee, and peers in our field have been and continue to be to me. In addition to making some of my work more visible within the community, I think it has helped generate more interest in biomechanics within my home institution, leading to cool new collaborations. Importantly, it always energizes a young lab, students especially, to see their advisor and part of their work be recognized so wonderfully by the community.

Current position: Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University
Research Interests: Wearables, Modeling, AI and ML, Osteoarthritis
More information: https://www.meche.engineering.cmu.edu/directory/bios/halilaj-eni.html

2021 ASB Early Career Achievement Award

Erin Mannen

Personal impact of award: The ASB Early Career Award has helped to highlight the novel infant biomechanics research in my BABI Lab. With the award, my university has spotlighted our BABI Lab in various university-wide publications, and my graduate students have benefitted from the added attention as well. Likely due to the award and increased awareness of our research, I have been invited for several lectures at various universities across the nation – it’s been a lot of fun meeting students in a variety of biomechanics programs and will contribute to my tenure packet. As I look to grow my lab with new graduate students over the next several years, I have no doubt that the ASB Early Career Award will help me recruit and hire the right people to add to our team. Finally, the stipend from the award was set aside as our official lab fun fund – and it has contributed to plenty of good times! I’m truly grateful for the community’s recognition and support of my team’s infant biomechanics research.

Current position: Assistant Professor of Mechanical & Biomedical Engineering at Boise State University in Boise, Idaho.
Research Interests: Infant biomechanics – musculoskeletal health and product safety.
More information: https://www.boisestate.edu/coen-babi/

2020 ASB Predoctoral Achievement Award

Josh Leonardis

Personal impact of award: Being honored with the ASB Pre-Doctoral Award remains the highlight of my career. The American Society of Biomechanics has played an extremely important role in my development as a biomechanist, and it was validating and encouraging to be recognized by a community of scientists I have long admired. The award continues to serve as a deep source of motivation as I work to live up to all that the award represents.

Current position: Assistant Professor, College of Applied Health Sciences, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Research Interests: shoulder biomechanics and morphology, wheelchair propulsion biomechanics, breast cancer survivorship, sex as a biological factor in biomechanics and neuromuscular control
More information: https://ahs.illinois.edu/leonardis

2021 ASB Predoctoral Achievement Award

Katie Knaus

Personal impact of award: I have always considered the ASB my academic home, so I was supremely honored to be selected for the Pre-Doctoral Award. It meant so much to see my work recognized as a significant contribution to the field where I see so many of my mentors and peers doing outstanding things. Winning the award has given me confidence in my skills and ideas that has helped me to build upon my pre-doctoral work and pursue interesting new directions in my postdoctoral position as well as develop exciting plans for my future lab as I apply for research faculty positions. I received the award while we were relatively locked down and isolated, so I am grateful for the opportunity the ASB gave me to present my work at the virtual meeting. The visibility from this award has helped me connect with many outstanding scientists across our amazing biomechanics community, leading to interesting conversations, new collaborative projects, and an ever-growing appreciation for the awesome work done by ASB members.

Current position: Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Wu Tsai Human Performance Alliance at UC San Diego
Research Interests: Skeletal muscle mechanics and physiology, multiscale structure-function relationships in the context of movement performance, computational modeling, imaging, tissue mechanics, assessment of athletic performance and disordered movement
More information: https://humanperformance.ucsd.edu/
@BiomecKatie (Twitter)