Conor Cullinane, PhD

As part of the second clinical rotation in the HST program (Introduction to Clinical Medicine II) there is a final period to gain experience in any desired specialty. I worked directly with NASA and MIT to develop and implement a Space Act Agreement to allow one student each year from the Bioastronautics Training Program to conduct their clinical specialty in Aerospace Medicine at NASA. My project during this period, within the Exploration Medical Capabilities Element at Johnson Space Center… Show more

As part of the second clinical rotation in the HST program (Introduction to Clinical Medicine II) there is a final period to gain experience in any desired specialty. I worked directly with NASA and MIT to develop and implement a Space Act Agreement to allow one student each year from the Bioastronautics Training Program to conduct their clinical specialty in Aerospace Medicine at NASA. My project during this period, within the Exploration Medical Capabilities Element at Johnson Space Center, was to interface between design teams and NASA physicians. The goal of the project was to coordinate medical subject matter expert opinions on standards to reduce deep space exploration risks based on precious operational experience and medical decision making. The NASA standards (NASA-STD-3001) document was in the process of being updated. I worked to collate the necessary input to make consensus recommendations for updates to that document. Specifically, I looked at suited operations and the standards that pertain to them. Show less

Strengthens the skills developed in Introduction to Clinical Medicine I through a six-week clerkship in medicine at the Harvard-affiliated VA teaching hospital in West Roxbury, MA. Students serve as full-time members of a ward team and participate in longitudinal patient care. In addition, students participate in regularly scheduled teaching conferences focused on principles of patient management.

Associated Pilots is an aircraft ownership group of 15 members that own two aircraft, a Cessna 182Q and a Cessna U206G. Associated Pilots is the successor to a group started by some people from MIT in 1948. When solid-state radios became affordable, the group split over the issue of IFR equipped, or strictly VFR. We are the descendants of the IFR group. The VFR group has disappeared. I am currently working on obtaining my instrument rating in the C182Q.

Develop skills in patient interviewing and physical examination; become proficient at organizing and communicating clinical information in both written and oral forms; begin integrating history, physical, and laboratory data with pathophysiologic principles; and become familiar with the clinical decision-making process and broad economic, ethical, and sociological issues involved in patient care.

The current state of the art in prosthetic limb technology provides bionic anthropomorphic limbs that can respond to efferent commands from the amputee’s neuromuscular system. However, the amputee’s ability to fully exploit the capabilities enabled by such prostheses is limited by the absence of high-fidelity means through which to convey somatosensory information about the limb to the user. In recognition of such limitations and in order to account for the inability to directly interrogate… Show more

The current state of the art in prosthetic limb technology provides bionic anthropomorphic limbs that can respond to efferent commands from the amputee’s neuromuscular system. However, the amputee’s ability to fully exploit the capabilities enabled by such prostheses is limited by the absence of high-fidelity means through which to convey somatosensory information about the limb to the user. In recognition of such limitations and in order to account for the inability to directly interrogate the afferent neural system associated with the missing limb, alternative mechanisms for providing somatosensory cues to the amputee user are currently being investigated. Due to the widespread commercial availability of powered upper-limb prostheses, the majority of the haptic display developments in prosthetics have focused on the upper extremity. However, the emergence of powered lower-limb systems with the capacity for volitional control by the amputee user has resulted in a need for somatosensory feedback not met by the haptic displays developed explicitly for upper-extremity systems. As such, the objective of my research project was the development of a vibrotactile display for a powered, transfemoral prosthesis and the experimental characterization of its effectiveness in improving the volitional control capability of the amputee user. Show less

Under-actuation is a term that describes that fact that a typical missile (or in our case a model rocket) does not have enough controls to match the number of degrees of freedom. The fins on the back of model rockets will stabilize it, but will not “control” the rocket. Since the fins are static, they simply generate an aerodynamic force applied at the aerodynamic center which counteracts rotations about the center of gravity with the static margin acting as the moment arm. The issue with this… Show more

Under-actuation is a term that describes that fact that a typical missile (or in our case a model rocket) does not have enough controls to match the number of degrees of freedom. The fins on the back of model rockets will stabilize it, but will not “control” the rocket. Since the fins are static, they simply generate an aerodynamic force applied at the aerodynamic center which counteracts rotations about the center of gravity with the static margin acting as the moment arm. The issue with this form of “control” is that it will direct the rocket in the path of greatest resistance as motion in that direction minimizes the aerodynamic force laterally across the rocket. If a wind exists, the rocket will experience weather cocking, and point itself into the wind. This is undesirable in a model rocket as it will result in a large travel distance in the air, ultimately leading to a touch-down far from the launch site, and far from any desired touch-down location. In order to properly actuate the system, especially for model rockets, an active stabilization technique is applied utilizing on board pneumatic thrusters near the nose cone of the rocket. These thrusters are part of a closed loop system that “senses" attitude deviations and corrects those deviations. The projectculminated in a public launch that demonstrates the effectiveness of the control system and its feasibility for model rocket applications. Show less