Research update

This week I am back in SK after an awesome 2 week vacation. I have jumped right back into high-intensity research mode, since everything that might have been scheduled in the last few weeks has been compressed into the time between my vacation and my conference/work trip to Halifax and Stockholm in August.  So far, I have:

1. conducted some lab trials for an occupational knee sensor,
2. scheduled 8 participants for knee sensor tests tomorrow and Friday,
3. visited 4 different pig farms to collect questionnaire data and recruit folks for ergonomic analyses next week and the week after,
4. purchased some video equipment for the pig study, and
5. booked my travel to Sweden next month. Yee-ha!

I also have some good news to share: my first principal investigator research grant was funded. This is a $120,000 ‘Establishment Grant’ intended for junior researchers administered by the Saskatchewan Health Research Foundation.  I was fortunate to get some great feedback from folks at U of S (Thanks Danielle and Josh!) and also have a great co-investigator group (Thanks Kay, Pete, and Brenna!) It was ranked fairly highly (4.5-5 out of 5), but the budget was consistently the lowest scored portion.  Maybe the reviewers know something I don’t? :S  This is one of 3 grant proposals I submitted in April, so I’ll keep crossing my fingers for the other two.  Of course, this means I’ll have to DO the research in the proposals… mo’ money, mo’ problems.

Also, the first journal article from the Flight Loader Study was published, with great contributions from the flight loader team and final editing by my Dad.  Thanks All! All interested nerds can read it since it is open -access:
Trask C, Mathiassen SE, Jens Wahlström J, Heiden M, and Rezagholi M. (2012) Data collection costs in industrial environments for three biomechanical exposure assessment methods. BMC Medical Research Methodology 12:89. DOI: 10.1186/1471-2288-12-89