Doctoral student Yu Song was recently selected as one of two recipients to receive a grant at the 40th Conference of the International Society of Biomechanics in Sports (ISBS) to study ACL injuries.
Song, who received her masters and undergraduate in China, came to UW because she was interested in Dr. Boyi Dai’s work with ACL injuries.
“I reached out and applied for an internship grant during my master’s program with him,” Song said. “I was wondering if it would be helpful to see what’s going on in the lab before I officially start my doctoral program.”
After her internship, Song officially enrolled and added that she experienced a great deal of support in the program.
“Yu impressed me with her strong biomechanical background and excellent communication skills,” Dai said of Song. “She was passionate about learning more about biomechanics and spent a lot of time in the lab observing and helping with different studies.”
Before receiving the grant, Song put in a great deal of research to create a cohesive proposal with a detailed timeline. The research focuses on common maneuvers in athletics that led to the common injury of the ACL, usually jump motions that end in an individual landing in a hazardous way.
“We want to provide evidence on such an abnormal landing position and how it causes an ACL injury,” Song said.
Song hopes to continue in this line of research and wants to one day work a faculty job at a University or in a post-doctoral position to help hospital patients.
“I am passionate about using biomechanical analysis to help decrease injury risk and improve performance to achieve a better quality of life,” she said. “I believe this grant will provide me with great experience in grant applications. I mean, it is a great start at this point.”
Dai agrees that Song is starting off well with the grant. He states that in this process, she has gained independence to collect and analyze data in a highly applicable way to help countless people affected by this type of injury.
“At the early stage of her career,” Dai said in closing, “Yu’s record strongly demonstrated that she had established a sustainable line of inquiry while being an excellent collaborator with other researchers.”
