Lab Life Video Series: The Sled Lab

0:16

Valentina Graci, PhD:
I'm Valentina Graci. I'm an assistant research professor at the Center for Injury Research and Prevention at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and also at Drexel University in the School of Biomedical Engineering.

0:37
My lab is called the SLED lab.

0:38
In our lab, we do automotive safety biomechanics for the most part, but we also have other research studies that look more at rehabilitation science and rehabilitation biomechanics.

0:50
Our focus is really pediatric research. We're the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Our impact by the mechanics lab is really unique.

0:57
We're the only impact by the mechanics lab that does automotive research in a pediatric hospital in the country.

1:03
So in our lab, we also look at how passengers and drivers feels about certain technology. They feel about having their secret line or the seat belt tightening or the warning, and that give us information about how they would perceive that technology in a naturalistic environment. It give us a little bit of a view on that real life condition.

1:25
It's very informative. It's something that you will not get in a traditional impact biomechanics lab where you test crush dummy or kind of a specimen. Human volunteer really give us a sense of how really humans behave in a vehicle and perceive the technology that we build in a vehicle. So it give us a larger perspective of safety.

2:08
So the Center for Injury Research and Prevention at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia was the perfect home for my research and is the perfect home for this lab.

2:17
The Center for Injury Research and Prevention mirror this multidisciplinary approach to injury prevention.

2:23
We're not just biomechanical engineers.

2:24
We are behavioralists, we are clinicians, we are epidemiologists, and we have to integrate these different disciplines at each step of the research. We really treasure and leverage on these multidisciplinary approach.

2:39
And so, I'm trying to really keep that approach throughout my career, throughout my research. And I want to mirror that in the lab to make sure that the lab is always in this perfect world where we have people working together and really try to understand each other language and each other perspective.

2:55
That's the best outcome for any research project to have seen different type of perspective and take them into account.

3:05
We have the Center for Child Injury Prevention Studies called CCHIPS.

3:08
Most of our studies in the lab have been funded by sea chips and this center basically encompass different type of automotive industry.

3:16
They all come together to understand how to prevent injury in children. It's actually amazing.

3:22
There are competitors in the room, but the common goal is really trying to understand how scientific study can inform the development for them of products and tools that could save children life.

3:32
So that's incredibly valuable for me, having that relationship with the stakeholders, which I never had before when I was doing rehabilitation research, and I was doing more basic research, you really see your research going a step further. You want to have high standard in your lab. You want to tell your student to have high standard because your information goes and inform decision that someone else make. And so you really want to be sure about your results.

3:58
You want to be absolutely thorough in conducting human subject studies because it's incredibly important what we do, and we can see the connection with the stakeholders.

4:07

Maitland Witmer, Graduate Research Assistant:
I didn't realize that anything like this existed prior to joining the lab because I'm like, I never thought about like automotive safety that someone actually has to go do that. And then also just my mentoring with Valentina. I have learned so much not only for like the lab, but like also for like my academic skills.

4:32
In engineering, I do not get to meet a ton of other females. I have classes that are like 50 people and three of us are women, so it was exciting to be like, oh my gosh, I could have like a female mentor.

4:45
So I was so excited about that and that's why I decided to apply.

4:46

Kavan Rajapaksha, Drexel Co-op Undergraduate Research Assistant

When I was looking for jobs, well, CHOP was one of the ones I already knew.

4:53
They do a lot of important, valuable work and I wanted to get involved with that.

4:57
There's a lot of freedom that you get working in the SLED lab.

5:00
Even though I'm just a Co-op, I felt like I made a valuable contribution to the outcome of the project.

5:08
I don't think it's something that you can necessarily like sit on the sidelines on and just like observe. You get to put in a lot of effort and make a difference.

5:17

Bhagawath Raj, Graduate Research Engineer:
I chose SLED lab because most of the research that goes into the SLED lab is automobile related. I love automobiles, and I love machines.

5:27
So this is a different application of automobile concept to a machine concept. So it's like a combination of both.

5:35
Being in Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, even though that my job does not involve as that of a physician, it makes me feel that I'm a part of an organization that does good for the children.

5:47
So it does good for others, and it does good for families.