Clark Dickerson

Associate Professor
BSc (Alfred), MSc (Clemson), PhD (Michigan)

Contact:

Office: BMH 3034
Telephone: 519-888-4567, ext. 37844
e-mail: cdickers@uwaterloo.ca
FAX: 519-746-6776

Research:
In summary, my research program aims to generate new knowledge in four major areas:

Fundamental shoulder function and dysfunction;
Creation and validation of mathematical models to predict exposures in the shoulder
Applications of shoulder biomechanics to workplace exertions; and
Rehabilitative and preventative strategies for ensuring shoulder health

When pursuing these areas, I rely on various techniques and approaches from biomedical sciences, engineering, kinesiology, physics, mathematics, medicine, rehabilitation science, psychology, and the social sciences to perform integrated, holistic analyses. Funding sources for the work include the National Science and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board of Ontario (WSIB), the Canadian Foundation for Innovation (CFI), AUTO21, the Centre of Research Expertise for the Prevention of Musculoskeletal Disorders (CRE-MSD), the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation (MRI), and numerous private industrial partners.
Research projects in these areas have ranged widely and all have involved student participation, from the undergraduate, MSc, and PhD levels. Opportunities for student involvement are frequently available, and I welcome interest from both current undergraduate and potential graduate students. Some examples of work done in my lab include:

Developing and validating an intricate, scalable 3-dimensional musculoskeletal model of the shoulder for task analysis
Examining police cruiser interior designs for risks to the upper extremity and back for mobile police officers
Documenting and interpreting the movement patterns of injured elderly persons and implications for designs of nursing homes and assistive devices
Designing workstations that consider capacity limitations subsequent to spinal cord injury or chronic low back pain
Quantifying the consequences of fatigue on humeral head translation and scapular orientation and the development of subacromial impingement
Evaluating competing work techniques for utility workers in terms of musculoskeletal injury risk
Producing psychophysical effort perception models to relate physical exposures to worker impressions of those exposures
Investigating the influence of wheelchair wheel type on torso and upper extremity demands in ramp ascent
Reporting the effectiveness of job rotation on muscular loading and fatigue development in the shoulder
Developing and evaluating new, efficient, non-expert workplace analysis tools for assessing shoulder physical loading
Interfacing complex biomechanical models with existing and future ergonomic analysis software
Identifying determinants of upper limb strength, including scapular orientation, direction of exertion, and population differences
Evaluating the efficacy and accuracy of clinical manual muscle tests for determining specific rotator cuff muscle weakness
Creating an empirical spatially-driven shoulder muscle activity database for hand exertions which is used both for improving interface layouts and validating muscle force predictions
Improving and generating methods for applying electromyographic methods to the study of muscles of the shoulder region

My overriding goal as a researcher is to produce new information to improve both the working and non-working lives of people throughout the world, with a particular focus on the shoulder.

Key Publications:
(* indicates a student at the time of publication)

Dickerson C.R., Martin B.J., and Chaffin D.B., 2007, Predictors of perceived effort in the shoulder during load transfer tasks, Ergonomics, 50(7):1004-16.

Dickerson C.R., Chaffin D.B., and Hughes R.E., 2007, A mathematical musculoskeletal shoulder model for proactive ergonomic analysis, Computer Methods in Biomechanics and Biomedical Engineering, 10(6):389-400.

Dickerson C.R., Hughes R.E., and Chaffin D.B., 2008, Experimental evaluation of a computational shoulder muscle force model, Clinical Biomechanics, 23:886-894.

*Grieve J.R. and Dickerson C.R., 2008, Overhead work: Identification of evidence-based exposure guidelines, Occupational Ergonomics, 8:53-66.

*Fischer S.L., Wells R.P. and Dickerson C.R., 2009, Controlling the upper limb: the effect of added degrees of freedom and handle type on upper limb muscle activation, Ergonomics, 52(1):25-35.

*Chow A.Y and Dickerson C.R., 2009, Shoulder strength of females while sitting and standing as a function of hand location and force direction, Applied Ergonomics, 40(3):303-308.

*Chopp J.N., *Fischer S.L., and Dickerson C.R., 2010, The impact of work configuration, target angle, and hand force direction on upper extremity muscle activity during sub-maximal overhead work, Ergonomics 53(1):83-91.

*Waite D.L., *Brookham R.L., and Dickerson C.R., 2010, On the usefulness of using surface electrode placements to estimate indwelling myoelectric activity of the rotator cuff, Journal of Electromyography and Kinesiology, 20:903-911.

*Brookham R.L., McLean L., and Dickerson C.R., 2010, Construct validity of muscle force tests of the rotator cuff muscles: an electromyographic investigation, The Physical Therapy Journal (PTJ) 90:572-580.

*Fischer S.L., *Belbeck A.L., and Dickerson C.R., 2010, The influence of providing feedback on force production and within-participant reproducibility during maximal voluntary exertions for the anterior deltoid, middle deltoid and infraspinatus, Journal of Electromyography and Kinesiology 20:68-75.

*Picco B.F., *Fischer S.L., and Dickerson C.R., 2010, Scapular orientation influences both shoulder strength and muscle activity, Clinical Biomechanics, 25:29-36.

Brown S.H.M., *Brookham R.L., and Dickerson C.R., 2010, High-pass filtering surface EMG in an attempt to better represent the signals detected at the intramuscular level, Muscle and Nerve, 41(2):234-9.

*Chopp J.N., O’Neill J.M., *Hurley K., and Dickerson C.R., 2010, Radiographic Examination of Humeral Head Migration after Fatiguing the Rotator Cuff, Journal of Shoulder and Elbow Surgery, 19(8):1137-44.

*Chopp J.N., *Fischer S.L., and Dickerson C.R., 2011, The specificity of fatiguing protocols affects scapular orientation: implications for subacromial impingement, Clinical Biomechanics, 26:40-45.

*Fischer S.L., *Grewal T.-J., Wells R.P., and Dickerson C.R., 2011, Performing bilateral versus unilateral exertions does not influence the magnitude of maximum voluntary electrical activity and modestly improves within-participant reproducibility, Journal of Electromyography and Kinesiology, 21:311-317.

*McKinnon C.D., Callaghan J.P., and Dickerson C.R., 2011, Field Quantification of Physical Exposures of Police Officers in Vehicle Operation, International Journal of Occupational Safety and Ergonomics, 17(1):61-68.

*Hall L.C., *Middlebrook E.E., and Dickerson C.R., 2011, Analysis of the influence of rotator cuff impingements on upper limb kinematics in an elderly population during activities of daily living, Clinical Biomechanics, in press as of February 8, 2011.

*Brookham R.L., *Middlebrook E.E., *Grewal T.-J., and Dickerson C.R., 2011, The utility of an empirically derived co-activation ratio for muscle force prediction through optimization, Journal of Biomechanics, in press as of February 21, 2011.

Courses Taught:
(* indicates current)

KIN 420 Occupational Biomechanics*
KIN 428 Upper Extremity Disorders*
KIN 470 Seminar in Kinesiology
KIN 612 Instrumentation and Signal Processing in Biophysical Research
KIN 613 Modern Methods in Biomechanical Modeling*

Dickerson, Clark

Clark Dickerson

Contact:

Research: In summary, my research program aims to generate new knowledge in four major areas:

Research:
In summary, my research program aims to generate new knowledge in four major areas: