Spectrum Lecture Series 2009-2010
Engineering and Neuroscience: Revolutionizing Prosthetics
Thursday, February 25th at 7:30 pm
Montgomery College
Globe Hall, HT Building
Germantown Campus
Dr. Dexter G. Smith
Business Area Executive for Biomedicine
Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory
Protecting soldiers on the battlefield is a key priority for our military. Improvements in
personal protective equipment have saved countless lives but many service members
have returned with injured or amputated limbs. Good progress is being made in
developing lower extremity prosthetics; however, upper extremity prosthetic limbs
today look very much like they did years ago. To restore function and enable our
soldiers the opportunity to return to duty, the military has funded a 4-year
Revolutionizing Prosthetics program. The vision was for an upper extremity prosthetic
limb with the functionality of a natural limb that could be neurally controlled. To
achieve this vision many breakthroughs in engineering and neuroscience had to be
made. This talk will present how this vision is being achieved and some of the key
technical breakthroughs.
Dr. Dexter G. Smith, P.E. is the Business Area Executive for Biomedicine at the Johns Hopkins
University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHU/APL). Dr. Smith leads the development of JHU/APL
programs that support Warfighter trauma prevention and protection. Among these programs
are support to Traumatic Brain Injury prevention, Joint Trauma Analysis for Prevention of Injury
in Combat (JTAPIC), Personal Protection Equipment analysis, Blast Injury R&D, Warfighter
performance in extreme environments, and Revolutionizing Prosthetics. He is also Chair of the
Electrical and Computer Engineering program in the Johns Hopkins Whiting School of
Engineering. Dr. Smith received his B.S. and M.Eng. in biomedical engineering from Rensselaer
Polytechnic Institute. He spent two years as a Clinical Engineer at Montebello Hospital in
Baltimore, MD before returning to Rensselaer to earn a Doctor of Engineering in electrical
engineering
Like all Spectrum Lectures, this presentation will be aimed at a general audience, and admission is
free. For questions or to request accommodations, please contact Susan Bontems at 240-5677740 or at susan.bontems@montgomerycollege.edu. For additional information on Spectrum
Lectures, please visit our webpage:
http://www.montgomerycollege.edu/Departments/spectrumlectures/