Ashley Rice traded coastal sights for mountain life and physics for mechanical engineering when she chose her graduate-study path. A native of Aiken, South Carolina, she finished her undergraduate degree at the College of Charleston and arrived at Rocky Top to work toward her PhD with Associate Professor Jeff Reinbolt\u2019s research group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The pace of life has stepped up along with the experiences of new territory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot more to do in Knoxville compared to Aiken, and the urban wilderness we have here is unbeatable,\u201d said Rice, who enjoys hiking and just getting outside whenever possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She admits missing having beaches nearby\u2014and Charleston\u2019s famous cuisine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe food in Charleston is fantastic,\u201d said Rice. \u201cBut there\u2019s nothing quite like the mountains we have here, so it\u2019s a nice trade. I also like going to a large SEC institution where school pride and sports are so closely intertwined.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another trade she appreciates is finding concrete ways to apply her background in more conceptual data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMy favorite course in undergraduate physics was classical mechanics,\u201d said Rice. \u201cI really enjoyed learning how equations\u2014just a bunch of letters and numbers\u2014can model real-world motion and systems.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Her fascination helps her wield the data to make a healing impact for people undergoing physical rehabilitation after a stroke.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe opportunity to apply this to data collected from real people, while at the same time being able to contribute to improving rehabilitation efforts and treatment design, was something I was really excited about,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rice and team look to develop and customize predictive models to answer the question of how well a prescribed treatment will contribute to improving an individual stroke victim\u2019s motor-control capacity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cCurrently, we\u2019re working on musculoskeletal modeling of post-stroke gait,\u201d she said. \u201cWe want to know how to optimize a treatment so that participants maximally benefit and regain as much motor function as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Metrics to judge post-stroke motor control vary person-to-person: Some people improve and some don\u2019t. The team uses multiple machine learning algorithms to match the metric with the person, based on pre-therapy baseline measurements of their walking ability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe can likely have a good model in place to figure out if this treatment will be suitable for this individual,\u201d said Rice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rice and colleagues performed hundreds of simulations and grouped results based on levels of motor-control capability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe\u2019re using a special statistical method to capture the time-dependent differences between each group,\u201d she said. \u201cThis information will tell us what aspects to target during rehabilitation, depending on which group the person falls in.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rice\u2019s work with the Reinbolt group has given her valuable, and enjoyable, experience in the field.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s allowed me to dabble in a lot of areas, from biomechanics to modeling to statistics and beyond, so it\u2019s opened a lot of doors,\u201d she said. She has become particularly interested in statistics and machine learning, and how these help to extract information and draw conclusions from data. \u201cI\u2019m considering careers then in data science, where these techniques can be applied broadly to all sorts of data.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rice\u2019s research contributions show off the Volunteer Spirit in one of the truest ways possible: applying science directly towards improving the human condition.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ashley Rice, a PhD student at UT, uses biomechanics, modeling, and machine learning to improve rehabilitation outcomes for stroke patients through predictive treatments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":376,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[83],"class_list":["post-375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-ashley-rice"],"yoast_head":"\n