Wayne State bioengineering graduate student Sumit Sharma receives prestigious award at Injury Biomechanics Symposium.

Sumit Sharma, a graduate student in biomedical engineering, was awarded the Simulia Excellence in Modeling Award at the seventh annual Injury Biomechanics Symposium, held May 22-24 at Ohio State University. The award was given to Sharma for his research in the field of finite element analysis, including automotive crash testing and blast injuries to the brain. Out of 17 students from across the nation who were selected to present at the symposium, Sharma received this prestigious award.

The Injury Biomechanics Symposium is held to stimulate and reward strong injury biomechanics research among students and recent graduates. Research topics that are presented at the symposium include: human subject testing, sports injury studies, crash safety evaluation, and anthropomorphic dummy research. This year's conference was supported by Honda, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Simulia, Nissan, National Children's Hospitals, Humanetics and Toyota Motors.

Sharma, who works under the guidance of bioengineering associate professor Liying Zhang, is studying the effects of blast waves on the human brain as well as researching ocular injuries in war zone. Sharma's research was made possible from U.S. Department of Defense grant funding received by Zhang, specifically DOD grant W81XWH-081-0678 entitled "Computational Modeling of Casual Mechanisms of Blast Wave Induced Traumatic Brain Injury - A Potential Tool for Injury prevention."

This past January, Sharma received the College of Engineering's Drs. Anthony and Joyce Kales Scholarship Award for Excellence in Academics and Research Performance.