May 10, 2023
By Ashley Ritchie

Gregory S. Sawicki, associate professor in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, has been chosen as the 2023 American Society of Biomechanics (ASB) Founders' Award winner. The prestigious award was established in 2017 to recognize scientific accomplishment in biomechanics and excellence in mentoring.

“I am honored to be selected for this recognition by my peers in the American Society of Biomechanics, which has been my professional home away from home since I first became a member as a graduate student in the mid-2000s. This award is unique because of the emphasis it places on both conducting good science and practicing thoughtful mentorship – a balance I work hard to strike in my role leading the lab,” said Sawicki.

Sawicki directs the Physiology of Wearable Robotics (PoWeR) Laboratory. The research group’s goal is to combine tools from engineering, physiology, and neuroscience to discover neuromechanical principles underpinning optimal locomotion performance and apply them to develop lower-limb robotic devices capable of improving both healthy and impaired human locomotion for elite athletes, aging baby boomers, and post-stroke community ambulators, to name a few.

By focusing on the human side of the human-machine interface, Sawicki and his group have begun to create a roadmap for the design of lower-limb robotic exoskeletons that are truly symbiotic – that is, wearable devices that work seamlessly in concert with the underlying physiological systems to facilitate the emergence of augmented human locomotion performance.

“I’d like to thank my family and friends, my colleagues, and all of those who have supported me in mentorship roles over the years. But, in the end, it’s the PoWeR lab people that make it all work. Since 2009, when the lab started up, I’ve been so grateful to be able to ‘geek out’ with the coolest geeks on the planet,” he added.

Sawicki joined Georgia Tech in August 2017 and holds appointments in the Woodruff School and the School of Biological Sciences. Prior, he spent eight years as a faculty member in the Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering at NC State and UNC–Chapel Hill. Sawicki received a B.S. from Cornell University in 1999 and an M.S. in mechanical engineering from the University of California-Davis in 2001. He completed his Ph.D. in human neuromechanics at the University of Michigan, Ann-Arbor in 2007 and was an NIH-funded post-doctoral fellow in integrative biology at Brown University from 2007-2009.

The Founders’ Award presentation to Sawicki will occur during the ASB Annual Conference, taking place August 8-11 in Knoxville, Tennessee.

About ASB

ASB was founded in 1977 to encourage and foster the exchange of information and ideas among biomechanists working in different disciplines and to facilitate the development of biomechanics as a basic and applied science.

ASB has a membership of approximately 850 academic researchers, clinicians, scientists, students, and industry members working to solve basic and applied problems in the realm of biomechanics and to improve understanding of the workings of biological systems. ASB members are organized into five primary discipline categories: biological sciences, exercise and sports science, health sciences, ergonomics and human factors, and engineering and applied science.