“I observed assistive technologies — developed by scientists and engineers my friends and I never met — which liberated us. My dream has always been to be one of those engineers.” Hermus says. Credit: Tony Pulsone
By Michaela Jarvis | Department of Mechanical Engineering
Before James Hermus began elementary faculty, he was a cheerful, curious child who cherished to study. By the tip of first grade, nevertheless, all that began to vary, he says. As his schoolbooks grew to become extra superior, Hermus might now not memorize the phrases on every web page, and faux to be studying. He clearly knew the fabric the trainer offered at school; his academics couldn’t perceive why he was unable to learn and write his assignments. He was accused of being lazy and never attempting arduous sufficient.
Hermus was lucky to have mother and father who sought out neuropsychology testing — which documented an infinite discrepancy between his native intelligence and his image decoding and phonemic consciousness. Yet regardless of receiving a prognosis of dyslexia, Hermus and his household encountered resistance at his faculty. According to Hermus, the college’s studying specialist didn’t “believe” in dyslexia, and, he says, the principal threatened his household with truancy prices once they took him out of faculty every day to attend tutoring.
Hermus’ faculty, 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 this purpose, acquiring and sustaining lodging, resembling prolonged time and a reader, was a relentless battle from first via twelfth grade: Students who carried out effectively misplaced their proper to lodging. Only via persistence and parental assist did Hermus reach an academic system which he says all too typically fails college students with studying disabilities.
By the time Hermus was in highschool, he needed to turn out to be a robust self-advocate. In order 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 actually life-changing. At first, to make use of this program he needed to disassemble textbooks, feed the pages via a scanner, and digitize them.
After working his approach to the University of Wisconsin at Madison, Hermus discovered a analysis alternative in medical physics after which later in biomechanics. Interestingly, the steep challenges that Hermus confronted throughout his schooling had developed in him “the exact skill set that makes a successful researcher,” he says. “I had to be organized, advocate for myself, seek out help to solve problems that others had not seen before, and be excessively persistent.”
While 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. During 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 incredible place. The people in MechE at MIT are extremely passionate and unassuming. I am not unusual at MIT,” Hermus says. Credit: Tony Pulsone
In September 2022, Hermus accomplished his PhD in mechanical engineering from MIT. He has been an creator on seven papers in peer-reviewed journals, three as first creator and 4 of them printed when he was an undergraduate. He has received 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 pupil in a particular schooling classroom, “I observed assistive technologies — developed by scientists and engineers my friends and I never met — which liberated us. My dream has always been to be one of those engineers.”
Hermus’ work goals to analyze and mannequin human interplay with objects the place each substantial movement and drive 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 could 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 creator on a paper on this subject, which was printed within the Journal of Neurophysiology and later received first place within the MIT Mechanical Engineering Research Exhibition. Using 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. More not too long ago, Hermus has collaborated with researchers on the University of Pittsburgh to see if these concepts show helpful within the growth of mind pc interfaces — utilizing electrodes implanted within the mind to manage a prosthetic robotic arm.
While the {hardware} of prosthetics and exoskeletons is advancing, Hermus says, there are daunting limitations to the sphere within the descriptive modeling of human bodily conduct, particularly throughout contact with objects. Without these descriptive fashions, growing generalizable implementations of prosthetics, exoskeletons, and rehabilitation robotics will show difficult.
“We need competent descriptive models of human physical interaction,” he says.
While incomes his grasp’s and doctoral levels at MIT, Hermus labored with Neville Hogan, the Sun 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 carried out over his six years within the Newman lab.
“James has done superb work for both his master’s and doctoral theses. He tackled a challenging problem and made excellent and timely progress towards its solution. He was a key member of my research group,” Hogan says. “James’ commitment to his research is unquestionably a reflection of his own experience.”
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 achieve 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 via regardless of the hurdles his dyslexia offered. He demonstrates the same sort of pleasure for ski-touring and rock-climbing with the MIT Outing Club, working at MakerWorkshop, and being a member of the MechE group.
“MIT is an incredible place. The people in MechE at MIT are extremely passionate and unassuming. I am not unusual at MIT,” he says. “Nearly every person I know well has a unique story with an unconventional path.”
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