Speakers

National Medal Laureate Rory A. Cooper, PhD, PLY is the founding director of the Human Engineering Research Laboratories, a joint center of the University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) and US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). He is a VA Senior Research Career Scientist and the FISA Foundation – Paralyzed Veterans of America Distinguished Professor at Pitt. Cooper has authored or co-authored over 400 peer-reviewed journal publications. He has over 30 patents awarded or pending. He is the author of two books: “Rehabilitation Engineering Applied to Mobility and Manipulation” and “Wheelchair Selection and Configuration”, and co-editor of “An Introduction to Rehabilitation Engineering”, “Warrior Transition Leader: Medical Rehabilitation Handbook” and the award winning book “Care of the Combat Amputee”. Cooper is an elected member of the National Academy of Engineering and Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, as well as RESNA, IEEE, AIMBE and BMES. In October 2023, he was awarded the National Medal of Technology and Innovation by President Biden and he was inducted into the 50th class of the National Inventors Hall of Fame. His students have won numerous awards and are leaders throughout the world.

Suzanne is Chief Research Officer, Senior Scientist, Associate Director of the Department of Biomechanics and Co-Director of the Soft Tissue Research Program at Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS), NYC. She is a Professor of Applied Biomechanics in Orthopaedic Surgery, Weill Cornell Medicine and an Adjunct Professor, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Cornell University. She obtained her mechanical engineering degrees from University College Dublin and Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. She has been a Scientist at HSS since 2002, which was punctuated by a period of research at the Cartilage Biology and Orthopaedics Branch at NIH. Her early research focused on the pre-clinical evaluation of materials intended for total joint replacement, but she gradually morphed that expertise to developing models to quantify knee joint contact mechanics, tissue response, and the functional performance of materials for meniscal/ chondral repair. Dr. Maher’s NIH funded studies have resulted in polymer technology which led to a spin out life sciences company, the first in the history of HSS, to commercialize a non-degradable implant for cartilage defects, and have provided new insights into the mechanical factors driving joint tissue degeneration.