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The life of a researcher is full of surprises; sometimes great ideas pop up all of a sudden and sometimes you get a beautiful result from your hard work. Your work environment can suddenly change completely due to a stay abroad and sometimes you discover in a conversation interesting mutual interests which can lead to interesting collaborations. And sometimes you suddenly are nominated for an award! I graduated this year as a biomedical engineer, worked 6 months as a pre-doctoral researcher, just started as a Ph.D. student and was never nominated for an award for my work, which is not that strange since I basically just started my academic career.
Last week however I was asked to come over, at free admission, to the annual conference of the ISPO (International Society for Prosthetics and Orthotics) NL in the Jaarbeurs in Utrecht because I was nominated for their thesis prize (afstudeerprijs) 2011, a competition I joined a few months ago with my master’s thesis: ‘The design of an osseo-integrated upper leg prosthesis fixation system’. The organization also asked to prepare some slides to give a 4 minute pitch on the topic, which only the winner was allowed to present. Of course I responded to the invitation and only 3 days later I went to visit the conference, which was about orthotics for the foot and ankle and turned out to be very interesting. There were 200-300 attendees and the presentations were given by medical doctors, movement scientists and others involved in this field.
There appeared to be three other nominees; two from universities of applied sciences and two from universities. Since master students usually are allowed to invest more time in their research than students from universities of applied sciences, there were two awards. My direct opponent was a student from the Technical University Delft, who worked on measuring proprioceptive feedback in arm prostheses, a very interesting and relevant topic. My research was more theoretical; I developed a prosthesis fixation system which holds interesting advantages for upper leg amputees. I tested it using a finite element model, optimized the design and a prototype was produced and tested in vitro. The results were promising and at this moment the prosthesis is being tested in an animal study. (details can be found on the ISPO website)
Just before the lunch break the award ceremony commenced. The chairman of the jury explained which criteria were used to assess the work and he gave a short introduction in the topics of each of the nominees. Subsequently he read some lines from the jury report and told that all of the nominees performed really well and that the scores were close together. Then the moment where the winner was announced was there…The jury decided unanimously that…I won!
My first academic award! I was called to the stage and awarded a certificate, a 1-year membership of the ISPO and an envelope. It was a great sensation to have my research appreciated by this group of experts! I always considered my main drive to be intrinsic motivation, but I have to confess that this kind of extrinsic motivation can also give quite a boost to the morale. Additionally I was allowed to give a pitch for all of the 200-300 attendees in the Irene hall. Immediately. So off I went to the lectern, where I tried to crush my 6 months of research into a 4-minute talk which was interesting to engineers, appealing to medical doctors and comprehensible for orthopedic shoemakers, physiotherapists etc. Quite a challenge, which I hope I succeeded in. It was at least an impressive experience and a perfect start of an academic career full of surprises!
Mike van Diest works as a Ph.D. student in the research group Health and Sports.