Dr. Richard Kent

Friday, Sept. 30, 2011, at 3:00 PM
Warnock Engineering Bldg. Rm. 2250
Reception to follow at 4:00 PM

Seminar Abstract: In the U.S., injury is the leading cause of death through the 4th decade of life where traffic crashes are by far the largest single cause. Worldwide, more than 1.2 million people die in road traffic crashes and as many as 50 million are injured or disabled every year. As China and India continue to motorize, these figures will become even more daunting. Simply put, automotive trauma is one of the world’s critical public health challenges.

Engineers have an important role to play if we are to mitigate this situation. Just as a civil engineer saves more lives by bringing clean water to a village than the local medical doctor does by treating cases of bacterial infection, roadway and vehicle design engineers can prevent more injuries than any trauma unit can successfully treat. This presentation will discuss novel contemporary methods, with particular focus on post-mortem and in vivo measurements, computational modeling, and animal research. Strengths and weaknesses of each of these methods will be discussed and key findings will be reported within the context of state-of-the-art injury protection systems.

About Dr. Kent

Richard Kent, a University of Utah alumnus, is a professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, and Emergency Medicine at the University of Virginia and Deputy Director of the UVa Center for Applied Biomechanics. He has published over 100 peer-reviewed articles on the biomechanics of trauma and automotive crash protection. He is a fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Automotive Medicine and of SAE and serves as Associate Editor for the Stapp Car Crash Journal and the Journal of Traffic Injury Prevention.