Recent News
- 01/22 - Hailey Smith joins the lab
- 10/21 - Daniel Wagner awarded CSM undergraduate research award
- 08/21 - Rajal Vyas, Daniel Wagner, Nick Fagan, and Steven Snipes join the lab
- 05/21 - Dr. Rosario invited talk - Center for Engineering Mechanobiology
- 04/21 - Dr. Rosario wins Outstanding Faculty Award
- 04/21 - Veronica Siko wins the GSA Excellence in Scholarship Award
- 04/20 - Dr. Rosario wins Award at Virtual Teaching with Technology Excellence Showcase
- 05/20 - Dr. Rosario invited to talk at Mississippi University for Women
- 03/20 - Study on tendon viscoelasticity published
Research Questions
Elasticity is important to organisms of all sizes across the tree of life. Elastic structures help kangaroos recycle energy while hopping, allow turkeys to limit power into their muscles while landing, and enable mantis shrimp to store energy in their exoskeleton before striking with incredibly fast accelerations. In the Rosario lab, we combine physical testing and computer simulations to study elastic mechanisms in biology. We focus on two main questions:
- how does a structure's shape affect its ability to store energy?
- how does energy storage affect the way organisms move?
We address these questions by investigating elastic mechanisms across the tree of life and by considering their effects on the muscles to which they connect. By studying a variety of systems from the exoskeletons of mantis shrimp to the muscle-tendon units of rats, this lab focuses on understanding not only how elastic mechanisms work, but also how they are used.