Our 2022 Biomedical Engineering Award recipient, Rory Cooper, has been selected to be part of the 50th class of National Inventors Hall of Fame® (NIHF) Inductees.
NIHF will honor these Inductees on Oct. 26, 2023, at one of the innovation industry’s most highly anticipated events — “The Greatest Celebration of American Innovation®” in Washington, D.C., USA.
You can read Cooper’s full bio on NIHF’s website.
More about Rory Cooper
Rory Cooper and his team at the University of Pittsburgh’s Human Engineering Research Laboratories are working to develop advancements including a wheelchair that can travel on rough terrain. Cooper founded the HERL in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
Cooper serves as the Director of the Human Engineering Research Laboratories at the University of Pittsburgh, and a senior career scientist with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. He serves as an advocate for veterans and the disabled. After he suffered a spinal cord injury that left him paralyzed, he began making modifications to the back brace doctors gave him and making better chairs.
His extensive contributions to wheelchair technology have expanded mobility and reduced secondary injuries for millions of people with disabilities. Cooper has used his experience and expertise to improve the lives of people with disabilities. His life-changing technologies include the SMARTWheel (SW), Variable Compliance Joystick with Compensation Algorithms (VCJ-CA), and Virtual Seating Coach (VSC). His inventions use biomechanics and ergonomics, as well as multisensor fusion, contextual awareness, artificial intelligence, and cloud computing to provide individually tailored coaching and data sharing with the clinical teams to help mitigate the risk for pressure injuries.
Learn how he continues to improve and enhance the technology that promotes people’s mobility, function, and inclusion in The Institute newsletter.
The health, happiness, and productivity of those whose lives he has improved with his revolutionary assistive devices provide social inclusion in society