A University of New Brunswick associate professor who has dedicated his career to improving prosthetics for the disabled has been named the 2016 Young Health Researcher of the Year, an experience he calls “humbling.”
Jon Sensinger, 36, was presented the award last month at the New Brunswick Health Research Conference. He was chosen out of 16 pre-selected young health researchers from across the province. The award is handed to a researcher who has held their PhD for less than 10 years.
He said being selected is “kind of a mixed feeling” because several of the other nominees were his colleagues at UNB. He also said though he received the title, his work is “not just me as an individual.”
“All of my research is team-based research,” said Sensinger.
“It’s not like I’m a lone ranger who just comes up with great ideas myself. Everything that I do is collaborative with other professors at UNB and relies on a team that I built within my own research.”
The Young Health Researcher of the Year is chosen from one of the 16 Health Researchers of the Month, selected by the New Brunswick Health Research Foundation. The council’s website says the monthly selection “celebrates individual or groups of health researchers for their achievements in health research, applied medicine and innovation.”
Sensinger said he researches how the brain interacts with prosthetic devices and exoskeletons and how to increase performance in both while maintaining stability and safety.
“The higher the performance, the easier it can be for things to go wrong,” he said. “It’s the same idea as an exoskeleton. If we try to improve the performance and have it walk faster … we run the risk of having it go unstable or act in unpredictable ways.”
The interest in engineering started when Sensinger, who grew up in New York state, was three years old. When he entered an “immersive” Grade 4 class with several students who had physical disabilities he said he wanted to design devices to help those with disabilities. Then in Grade 7 when his class was exploring careers he told his teacher about his passion, who suggested work in prosthetics. This led him to a prosthetic clinic, which led to a decision.
“I said, ‘yeah that’s exactly what I want to do,'” Sensinger said. “So I said, well how do I go about ensuring that I can do this when I grow up.”
A clinician told him he would need to get a PhD and recommended Northwestern University in Illinois. In 2007, he graduated with his PhD and eventually took a job at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago. About four years ago he moved to UNB and became associate director of the university’s Institute of Biomedical Engineering. He said he made the move due to the supportive work-family life balance it could give him, which is a “dream come true.”
Kevin Englehart, director of the institute, said Sensinger brings original ideas and a work ethic that has “set the bar incredibly high.”
“Jon really blends the best of both worlds where he takes a very principled approach to his research and so essentially he knows going into a problem exactly how he’s going to approach the problem,” said Englehart, who said he’s known the 36-year-old engineer for about 10 years.
“He has the whole package. He has the impact in his field, he has the top quality publications and he’s also training a large number of students who are getting exceptional training.”
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