“I noticed assistive applied sciences — developed by scientists and engineers my pals and I by no means met — which liberated us. My dream has at all times been to be a type of engineers.” Hermus says. Credit score: Tony Pulsone
By Michaela Jarvis | Division of Mechanical Engineering
Earlier than James Hermus began elementary college, he was a contented, curious child who liked to be taught. By the top of first grade, nonetheless, all that began to vary, he says. As his schoolbooks grew to become extra superior, Hermus might not memorize the phrases on every web page, and faux to be studying. He clearly knew the fabric the instructor offered at school; his lecturers couldn’t perceive why he was unable to learn and write his assignments. He was accused of being lazy and never making an attempt arduous sufficient.
Hermus was lucky to have dad and mom who sought out neuropsychology testing — which documented an infinite discrepancy between his native intelligence and his image decoding and phonemic consciousness. But regardless of receiving a prognosis of dyslexia, Hermus and his household encountered resistance at his college. In response to Hermus, the varsity’s studying specialist didn’t “imagine” in dyslexia, and, he says, the principal threatened his household with truancy prices after they took him out of faculty every day to attend tutoring.
Hermus’ college, like many throughout the nation, was reluctant to supply lodging for college students with studying disabilities who weren’t two years behind in two topics, Hermus says. For that reason, acquiring and sustaining lodging, equivalent to prolonged time and a reader, was a continuing battle from first by way of twelfth grade: College students who carried out properly misplaced their proper to lodging. Solely by way of persistence and parental assist did Hermus reach an academic system which he says all too usually fails college students with studying disabilities.
By the point Hermus was in highschool, he needed to develop into a powerful self-advocate. So as to entry superior programs, he wanted to have the ability to learn extra and sooner, so he sought out adaptive know-how — Kurzweil, a text-to-audio program. This, he says, was really life-changing. At first, to make use of this program he needed to disassemble textbooks, feed the pages by way of a scanner, and digitize them.
After working his option to the College of Wisconsin at Madison, Hermus discovered a analysis alternative in medical physics after which later in biomechanics. Apparently, the steep challenges that Hermus confronted throughout his training had developed in him “the precise ability set that makes a profitable researcher,” he says. “I needed to be organized, advocate for myself, search out assist to unravel issues that others had not seen earlier than, and be excessively persistent.”
Whereas working as a member of Professor Darryl Thelen’s Neuromuscular Biomechanics Lab at Madison, Hermus helped design and take a look at a sensor for measuring tendon stress. He acknowledged his strengths in mechanical design. Throughout this undergraduate analysis, he co-authored quite a few journal and convention papers. These experiences and a want to assist folks with bodily disabilities propelled him to MIT.
“MIT is an unimaginable place. The folks in MechE at MIT are extraordinarily passionate and unassuming. I’m not uncommon at MIT,” Hermus says. Credit score: Tony Pulsone
In September 2022, Hermus accomplished his PhD in mechanical engineering from MIT. He has been an writer on seven papers in peer-reviewed journals, three as first writer and 4 of them printed when he was an undergraduate. He has gained awards for his teachers and for his mechanical engineering analysis and has served as a mentor and an advocate for incapacity consciousness in a number of completely different contexts.
His work as a researcher stems straight from his private expertise, Hermus says. As a scholar in a particular training classroom, “I noticed assistive applied sciences — developed by scientists and engineers my pals and I by no means met — which liberated us. My dream has at all times been to be a type of engineers.”
Hermus’ work goals to research and mannequin human interplay with objects the place each substantial movement and pressure are current. His analysis has demonstrated that the best way people carry out such on a regular basis actions as turning a steering wheel or opening a door may be very completely different from a lot of robotics. He confirmed particular patterns exist within the conduct that present perception into neural management. In 2020, Hermus was the primary writer on a paper on this matter, which was printed within the Journal of Neurophysiology and later gained first place within the MIT Mechanical Engineering Analysis Exhibition. Utilizing this perception, Hermus and his colleagues carried out these methods on a Kuka LBR iiwa robotic to find out about how people regulate their many levels of freedom. This work was printed in IEEE Transactions on Robotics 2022. Extra not too long ago, Hermus has collaborated with researchers on the College of Pittsburgh to see if these concepts show helpful within the improvement of mind pc interfaces — utilizing electrodes implanted within the mind to manage a prosthetic robotic arm.
Whereas the {hardware} of prosthetics and exoskeletons is advancing, Hermus says, there are daunting limitations to the sector within the descriptive modeling of human bodily conduct, particularly throughout contact with objects. With out these descriptive fashions, growing generalizable implementations of prosthetics, exoskeletons, and rehabilitation robotics will show difficult.
“We’d like competent descriptive fashions of human bodily interplay,” he says.
Whereas incomes his grasp’s and doctoral levels at MIT, Hermus labored with Neville Hogan, the Solar Jae Professor of Mechanical Engineering, within the Eric P. and Evelyn E. Newman Laboratory for Biomechanics and Human Rehabilitation. Hogan has excessive reward for the analysis Hermus has performed over his six years within the Newman lab.
“James has finished very good work for each his grasp’s and doctoral theses. He tackled a difficult downside and made glorious and well timed progress in direction of its answer. He was a key member of my analysis group,” Hogan says. “James’ dedication to his analysis is definitely a mirrored image of his personal expertise.”
Following postdoctoral analysis at MIT, the place he has additionally been a part-time lecturer, Hermus is now starting postdoctoral work with Professor Aude Billard at EPFL in Switzerland, the place he hopes to realize expertise with studying and optimization strategies to additional his human motor management analysis.
Hermus’ enthusiasm for his analysis is palpable, and his zest for studying and life shines by way of regardless of the hurdles his dyslexia offered. He demonstrates an identical sort of pleasure for ski-touring and rock-climbing with the MIT Outing Membership, working at MakerWorkshop, and being a member of the MechE group.
“MIT is an unimaginable place. The folks in MechE at MIT are extraordinarily passionate and unassuming. I’m not uncommon at MIT,” he says. “Practically each individual I do know properly has a novel story with an unconventional path.”
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