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Olivia Felton

Olivia Felton is a PhD student in the Welker Lab, led by Assistant Professor Cara Welker, at the ��«����Ƶ. Their main focus: to use assistive technology to help both able-bodied individuals and those with disabilities.

Felton earned her Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Baylor University. During her time as an undergraduate, she worked in a fluids lab. While she found the research interesting, she knew it was not what she wanted to study long term.

Currently, her work focuses on recreational runners. In her experiments, participants run on a force instrumented treadmill, which tracks their ground reaction forces. They also wear a metabolic mask to measure energy expenditure during running. The running is slightly different than what they are used to, however, since they have an exotendon attached to their feet.

The exotendon is surgical tubing with loops on both ends held in place with zip ties and s-biners to clip onto the shoes of the person being tested. It creates a force between the individual's feet as the tubing stretches and molds as they run. Dr. Welker’s research has shown that the exotendon allows a runner to expend about six percent less metabolic energy when running at a 10 minute mile pace.

Moving forward, Felton is expanding the study by understanding the effect of running with the exotendon at a range of speeds and how reducing metabolic energy expenditure affects self-selected running speed.

Throughout her research, Felton has found she enjoys working with the many different people who come through her lab.

“One really cool thing about this study is that we're recruiting recreational runners, so I do a lot of run clubs around ��«����Ƶ to recruit participants. I've met a lot of really great people,” Felton shared.