My research has primarily focused on
prevention of head injuries from blunt
impacts . So if you think about impacts
from , if you're an aviator and you're
flying in a helicopter and the
helicopter crashes , preventing head
injuries due to the , you know , your
head striking something in the
helicopter during the crash . And more
recently we've been doing work at
preventing head injuries due to high
rate blunt impacts like those you get
from back face deformation when a
combat helmet stops and incoming around
the back of that helmet deforms inward
towards the skull . And we're doing
work to try and prevent head injuries
from those really high rate blunt
impacts and we're trying to develop
injury criteria for assessing how much
back face deformation of a combat
helmet is too much so that we can make
sure that the helmets provide the
optimum amount of protection to the
soldiers in the field .
I've also gotten to do some really interesting
work investigating helicopter crashes
and ground vehicle mishaps , trying to
figure out , do the safety systems that
are in those vehicles , the helmets ,
For one thing , the seats , the
restraint systems are those systems
working the way they should? Are they
preventing injuries ? What can we do to
make them better ? Um , that actually
led to the cockpit airbag program where
the army was developing cockpit airbags
for the Black Hawk and the Kiowa
Warrior helicopters and we would get
reports back from interviews from the
aviators involved in those accidents
saying this air bag saved my life . I
can't think of hearing anything better
than that . Is that the work you've
done has saved someone's life has
prevented an injury . It's allowed
someone to come home to their family .
The work that we do is extremely
important because brain injuries can be
quite catastrophic . So protecting
someone's head from from injury is is
of paramount importance again , no
matter who it is , whether it's a an
aviator , you know that's where we
spent millions of dollars training them
to fly a helicopter or it's a ground
soldier who is a huge asset to the army .
So protecting the head and preventing
injuries in crashes and things like
that is of paramount importance is we
do the research that feeds into the
performance standards that then go out to
industry and industry makes helmets to
those standards without those you know
our soldiers are potentially at risk.
The current helmet that the army flies
with, its the HD 56 P . The
specifications for that helmet . The
work to develop that spec came out of
USAARL and that speck have resulted in
probably the best helmet in the tri
services when it comes to protecting
aviators in a crash . So we're
fortunate to have the generous support
of the D . H . A . In funding a good
portion of our research . So all of our
research goes to support military
operational medicine . We want that
next generation helmet to be even more
protective again so that folks come
home at the end of the day to their to
their friends and family . I love what
I do . The fact that what my team
and I do here at this , at this lab ,
what all of USAARL does is
work and research to
improve the survivability , improve the
lives of our war fighters . I can't
think of any place better to work .
Quite honestly , it's a team effort .
I'm lucky to just be a part of it .