Five University of Calgary researchers will share in $2.2 million awarded by the Alberta Ingenuity Fund. The 2002 Ingenuity Associateships will be awarded to 16 Alberta academics to attract researchers to the province and encourage research expansion.
Award recipient Dr. David Corr–a new addition to the U of C Department of Kinesiology from the University of Wisconsin–teamed up with Dr. Walter Herzog from the Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering in an effort to create a model to determine the energetics of skeletal muscle.
"If we are successful in developing this model, it could greatly progress the field of muscle mechanics," said Corr.
Corr hopes his work will aid researchers in discovering how muscles share forces. By combining the mechanical as well as the energetic side of muscle movement, Corr plans to create a mathematical formula that can be used by others in his field. Once created, this model would be used in gait analysis, improvements in physical performance and injury recovery.
Corr hopes to show how basic human movements such as walking or rotating the anklecan be done most efficiently. Upon discovering the minimal energy required for simple movement, he plans to eventually continue his work on injury recovery.
"The human body is beautiful in its design and it has just really become interesting to me," said Corr who feels the Alberta Ingenuity Fund will affect Alberta’s research community immensely. "One of the biggest struggles is to secure funding, so you can focus strictly on the research endeavors at hand. When you have programs like this, which are willing to fund academic research in its pure form, the effects are wide-spread."
The Alberta Ingenuity Fund was established by the Alberta government in 2000 with a $500 million endowment.
Dr. Yingjun Zhao from the Department of Chemistry, Dr. Sang-Un Park from the Department of Biological Science, Dr. Joanne Brown from the Department of Physics and Dr. Peter Hoyer from the Department of Computer Science were also awarded Ingenuity Associateships.