Postdoc musculoskeletal modeling in children with cerebral palsy

As part of the ZonMW-funded project ‘Foot4Thought: Multimodal modelling to understand and prevent foot deformities in cerebral palsy’, we are seeking a highly motivated and enthusiastic postdoctoral researcher. This project is a collaboration between Amsterdam UMC (departments of Rehabilitation Medicine, Orthopedic Surgery, and Radiology) and TU Delft (department of Biomechanical Engineering).

The project aims to unravel the biomechanical and developmental mechanisms underlying foot deformities in children with cerebral palsy (CP), in order to enable earlier, more personalized, and more effective interventions to prevent lifelong mobility limitations. We will gather longitudinal weight-bearing CT and clinical gait analysis data, including data before and after treatment with orthotics and orthopaedic surgery. Using these data, we will characterize anatomical differences in bone shape and orientation using statistical shape modelling technique. Furthermore, we will estimate biomechanical loading on the bones during gait using patient-specific musculoskeletal modelling and simulate bone stresses and bone growth using finite element analyses.

As a postdoctoral researcher, you will play a key role in creating patient-specific musculoskeletal models of the foot and ankle, and you will contribute to the development of a dataset of weight-bearing CT and gait analysis data. Your specific tasks will include:

• creating and evaluating patient-specific OpenSim models of the foot and ankle using OpenSim creator;
• contributing to the automation of patient-specific model creation by developing warping methods based on statistical shape models to automatically deform foot models;
• contributing to the development of the dataset by performing retrospective data curation and analysis;
• writing an METc application for future longitudinal data collection;
• writing grant applications to obtain additional funding for future follow-up project.

We are seeking a highly motivated, talented individual with a strong interest in musculoskeletal modeling and clinical applications. In addition, you meet the following requirements:

• finished or nearly finished PhD in a relevant related field, such as biomechanical engineering, biomedical engineering, or related fields;
• strong interest in pediatric orthopedic research and interdisciplinary collaboration with clinical partners;
• strong expertise in musculoskeletal modeling, preferably with OpenSim (Creator);
• good programming skills in Matlab/Python;
• a solid publication record appropriate to career stage is desirable.

More junior researchers who have not (yet) obtained a PhD but fulfil all other criteria are also welcome to apply.