Seeing her father struggle through rehabilitation exercises after a stroke made Marina Samuel ’25 think, why can’t therapy be more personalized, effective and efficient for the patient?
So, with a central focus on patients, she pursued a bachelor’s in biomedical engineering at New Jersey Institute of Technology and after graduation in May, will seek a Ph.D. in the same discipline at NJIT. Her research as an undergraduate fueled this pursuit.
In the Clinical Neuromuscular Lab of Assistant Professor Jongsang Son, Samuel synthesized findings from 20 studies on the acute and chronic effects of static stretching on joint stiffness and neuromuscular activation for a review paper that she co-authored, during her sophomore year.
As a senior, her capstone project involved a line-following robot that applied constant force to the stronger leg of a stroke patient to support the physical therapy of the weaker leg. Now, as a Ph.D. student, she plans to “explore biomechanical models, improve human-device interaction and integrate real-time data analysis and machine leading to optimize personal therapy programs.” To read the full story.