Genevieve Bonnor
Why did you decide to pursue a graduate degree?
I have always been passionate about research, and completing my Capstone project in my final undergraduate year was a major inflection point for wanting to pursue research full-time.
Why did you decide to study at UBC?
I completed my undergraduate degree at UBC and love the open research culture here, so I decided to pursue my graduate degree here as well. The faculty here are some of the best in the country and are always open to help with questions or ready to participate in inter-lab collaboration.
What is it specifically, that your program offers, that attracted you?
Biomedical engineering, specifically biomechanics, has always interested me. I am fascinated by the way the body moves, and why it gets injured in the manner of certain moves.
What was the best surprise about UBC or life in Vancouver?
I've lived here for almost my whole life but I have always loved how Vancouver is so full of nature and life.
What aspects of your life or career before now have best prepared you for your UBC graduate program?
Doing research in a lab during my co-op has really exposed me to research and how it is completed, it was a great source of learning!
What advice do you have for new graduate students?
Get out there! Join clubs, start a journal club in your lab, and don't be afraid to ask others for collaboration opportunities or help with any questions.
Learn more about Genevieve's research
Over 26% of Canadians above the age of 15 play sports, indicating that 10 million Canadians are at risk of incurring an injury, of which 39% are to the knee. Many knee injuries occur due to athletes changing directions at a fast speed, such as performing pivot moves in soccer or basketball. We can measure this change in direction and speed using inertial measurement units (IMUs), which are placed on the athletes' skin. However, the motion of the skin, fat, and other soft tissues obfuscates the IMU measurement, which ultimately aims to find the motion of the skeleton to determine injury risk. This obfuscation is referred to as dynamic soft tissue artifacts and can lead to an overestimation of athletes' peak movements, which is associated with movement intensity. Thus, these dynamic soft tissue artifacts result in an exaggeration of injury risk and severity. To mitigate these artifacts, we can utilize a Kalman filter, which combines measurements from multiple IMUs to obtain a more accurate movement measurement. The objective of this research is to create a model of the knee using a soft tissue surrogate material and collect IMU data on relevant movements and how the skin, fat, and other tissues move during these movements. The IMUs will be placed both on the knee bones to determine skeletal motion and on the soft tissue surrogate material to track the motion of the soft tissue. I will then utilize a custom Kalman filter on the data from the soft tissues to predict skeletal motion and compare it to the actual skeletal motion. This research will ultimately help us understand more about how the knee behaves during high-intensity movement and will aid in processing on-field data to better predict injury severity and risk.