Marcia O'Malley
Rice University
Seminar Information
Note: Students must attend in person to receive credit for MAE 205.
Robots are increasingly transitioning from factories to human environments, and more and more, these mechatronic devices take wearable form factors. My lab has a particular interest in how wearable robots and haptic devices can train or re-train complex motor skills by transmitting forces, torques, and haptic cues to users that encode information critical to the task being trained. We have shown that different implementations of haptic guidance provided via kinesthetic feedback can have either negative, neutral, or positive effects on motor performance and skill acquisition. More recently, we have shifted to provide cutaneous haptic feedback for guidance or performance feedback. This talk will highlight our progress over the past decade in implementing real-time haptic feedback via wearable devices to train complex motor skills.
Dr. Marcia K. O’Malley is the Thomas Michael Panos Family Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Computer Science, Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Bioengineering at Rice University, where she serves as Chair of the Department of Mechanical Engineering in the George R. Brown School of Engineering and Computing. She directs the Mechatronics and Haptic Interfaces (MAHI) Lab and holds adjunct appointments in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Baylor College of Medicine and the University of Texas Medical School at Houston. Dr. O’Malley earned her B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Purdue University and her M.S. and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Vanderbilt University. Her research advances physical human-robot interaction, haptic feedback, and wearable robotic and exoskeleton systems for rehabilitation and assistive applications. She has pioneered strategies for motor adaptation and skill acquisition through psychophysical studies and shared control, enabling technologies that restore movement coordination after neurological injury and enhance training of complex motor skills in virtual environments. At Rice, she has twice received the George R. Brown Award for Superior Teaching, and was honored with the Faculty Award for Excellence in Research, Teaching, and Service. Dr. O’Malley is a Fellow of ASME, IEEE, AIMBE, and IAMBE, and her contributions have been recognized with the ONR Young Investigator Award, NSF CAREER Award, and the Grand Nagamori Award.