NCBL
NCBL

University of Alberta

Aida Valevicius

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About ME

I am currently a Ph.D. Candidate in the NCB Laboratory. I graduated with a B.Sc. in Kinesiology from McGill University in 2012. Following that degree, I attended the University of Western Ontario where I pursued graduate studies in biomechanics. My focus was on studying the foot using a multi-segment foot model with motion capture technologies, more specifically fluoroscopy and optoelectronic motion capture systems. I completed my M.Sc. in Kinesiology – Biomechanics in 2014. I then started a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Alberta in January 2015.

Supervisors:

  • Dr. Albert Vette
  • Dr. Jacqueline Hebert

Research Interests:

  • Upper body biomechanics
  • Gait biomechanics
  •  Running biomechanics
Task Picture

Task Picture

 
Kinematic Flow Chart

Kinematic Flow Chart

PROJECT

My Ph.D. project is part of a bigger project, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Hand Proprioception and Touch Interfaces (HAPTIX) project being conducted in collaboration with the ACELab and BLINC labs at the University of Alberta. My project focuses on developing a novel assessment tool, called Gaze and Movement Analysis, to quantify kinematic and visual requirements of prosthetic users during standardized functional tasks. My focus is primarily on establishing normative kinematic behavior for the two tasks and evaluating upper limb prosthetic kinematic behavior. My main objective is to successfully quantify how prosthetic users compensate for missing degrees of freedom with their prosthetic devices while completing tasks mimicking everyday activities. 

The equipment I use for my project:

  • Vicon Bonita camera motion capture system
  • Vicon Nexus 2 motion analysis software
  • MATLAB programming language used for kinematic data analysis

AWARDS & scholarships

Awards:

  • 2nd Place Student Poster Award, Myoelectric Controls Symposium 2017, Fredericton, Canada, August 2017
  • Academic Travel Award, Graduate Students’ Association, University of Alberta, August 2017
  • Student Travel Award, American Society of Biomechanics, May 2016

Scholarships:

  • Queen Elizabeth II Graduate Scholarship, Faculty of Graduate Research Studies, University of Alberta, September 2016

publications

  • Valevicius, A. M., Jun, P. Y., Hebert, J. S., Vette, A. H. (2018). Use of optical motion capture for the analysis of normative upper body kinematics during functional upper limb tasks: A systematic review. Journal of Electromyography and Kinesiology, 40, 1-15.
  • Boser, Q. A., Valevicius, A. M., Lavoie, E. B., Chapman, C. S., Pilarski, P. M., Hebert, J. S., Vette, A. H. (2018). Cluster-based upper body marker models for three-dimensional kinematic analysis: Comparison with an anatomical model and reliability analysis. Journal of Biomechanics, 72, 228-234.
  • Lavoie, E. B., Valevicius, A. M., Boser, Q. A., Kovic, O., Vette, A. H., Pilarski, P. M., Hebert, J. S., Chapman, C. S. (2018). Using synchronized eye and motion tracking to determine high-precision eye movement patterns during object interaction tasks. Journal of Vision, in press.