Question: What inspired you to become involved in bio-mechanics? Would you recommend it to anyone else, if so, why?

LauraAnne Furlong answered on 14 Nov 2016:

I always wanted to fix people and help them get better. I did work experience as a physiotherapist when I when was 15 or 16 and seen how important being able to understand movement and what causes movement was to being able to help someone get better and recover. That’s what biomechanics is about – understanding movement and what causes it. We use biomechanical measures to answer important questions about why we move the way we do, and how to improve it. As I learnt more about the subject, I seen how many different applications it has – not just rehabilitation of broken bones but also people with acquired brain injuries, stroke or multiple sclerosis, as well as applied sport science to maximise sports performance, design new equipment, and in injury prevention. As we are closely linked to engineering, there are options to go into equipment design, robotics or wearable technology if you want, as well as work in sport and exercise or rehabilitation of clinical populations.

I would definitely recommend it – it is an area of science that can make a real difference to someone’s life and has a lot of different areas you can go into. Liking numbers is a big help for this type of research, but shouldn’t put people off getting involved. You also get to play with lots of fun science toys like motion analysis (reflective dots on your body that come up on the computer screen), force analysis (giant bathroom scales that tell us how much force you’ve applied), electromyography (measures which muscle is working and how much) and ultrasound (pictures of muscle and tendon working under your skin).