Cara Lewis

Cara L. Lewis, PT, PhD is an Associate Professor and director of the Human Adaptation Laboratory.  The goal of Dr. Lewis’s research is to further the understanding of motor adaptation and to develop interventions to reduce hip pain. Dr. Lewis is pursuing two lines of research. First, she is using a robotic hip exoskeleton to study the way people adapt to walking with assistance or resistance provided at the hip joint. Second, she is studying the way people walk to determine if people with hip pain walk differently from people without hip pain. People with hip pain may benefit from changing the way they walk to reduce the stress on the hip joint. Combining these two lines of research may lead to the effective use of robotics in gait rehabilitation for people with hip pain.

Dr. Lewis has been supported by the National Institutes of Health. She has published and presented her research nationally and internationally in biomechanics, physical therapy, and motor control forums.