Kinsey Herrin
Background
Kinsey Herrin is a Senior Research Scientist in the School of Mechanical Engineering and the Director of the Human Interface Design Development and Engineering lab. She is an American Board Certified Prosthetist/Orthotist and a Fellow of the American Academy of Orthotists and Prosthetists. Her research focuses on advancing state of the art assistive and rehab technology and studying the associated outcomes in individuals with mobility impairments.
She is passionate about advancing technology and clinical care to improve mobility and quality of life for individuals with disabilities. She completed her residency training in orthotics at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta and prosthetics at the University of Michigan.
Why did you apply?
Our team was interested in how a powered hip exoskeleton would benefit stroke survivors in clinically meaningful ways. While many stroke survivors present with distal weakness around the ankle joint, they compensate for that weakness at the hip joint. We were already seeing positive biomechanical outcomes with the use of the exoskeleton in the laboratory, but we were especially curious about clinical outcomes and patient reported outcomes; this funding was a fantastic mechanism to accomplish that work
How did the funding help you meet your goals?
This award advanced several key goals. It enabled us to study clinically meaningful outcomes of a
powered hip exoskeleton in stroke survivors, particularly during outdoor walking—an essential but often lost ability post-stroke. Some participants responded positively, while others did not, pushing us to refine our exoskeleton’s hardware and software, making it lighter, more comfortable and more intelligent.
A major outcome of this funding was leveraging our published work to secure a larger NIH R01 grant. This new project expands on our initial research to explore hip and ankle exoskeletons, biofeedback, and their combined potential to improve stroke rehabilitation.
Additionally, this award helped establish the Human Interface Design, Development, and Engineering (HIDDEn) Lab at Georgia Tech. This lab is an incredible resource to support advanced O&P research, driving innovation in assistive technology.
How did the funding impact your career?
The award was huge for me and our team as a whole. It was validating toward the value of my ideas and work as a clinician scientist, allowed me to establish a functioning research laboratory here at Tech and also allowed our team to win a large NIH R01 grant to continue to develop and test not only hip exoskeletons for stroke survivors, but ankle exoskeletons as well as biofeedback.
Ultimately, my hope and our goal as a team is to push these technologies out of the lab and into the hands of clinicians who can get them onto patients who will benefit from them. Overall, when I look back on what that ‘small grant’ award did, it made and is continuing to make big impact.
What did the funding mean to you personally?
I was very grateful for the OPERF/O&P Foundation review committee for taking a chance on this project. I am so passionate about how our work here can lead to major changes for patients in the future and while this funding was for a very specific project, I see it as a much larger investment into a bigger dream to ultimately make our patients’ lives better through advanced technology.
