Jack Schorsch pursued his PhD thesis under supervision of Frans van der Helm and David Abbink on the Human-Centered Haptics programme, for a project that explored Shared Control for Lifting Aids. Before finishing his thesis, he started the successful robotic startup IM Systems.
I have always been fascinated by humans working with, and augmented by machines. My first research field was prosthetics, specifically trying to bring signals out of the body to control highly complex electromechanical hands. My current field of work is exoskeleton design. Here, I am trying to understand how humans can work with augmentive technologies, to see how the way we move is changed by the systems we interact with. I am specifically working on building a powered lifting exoskeleton for the healthcare field which is designed to be automatically adjusting, and require no training or adaptation to learn how to use.
I have had the good fortune to work with outstanding researchers at the Loyola University Medical Center, University of Southern California, The Alfred Mann Foundation, the Rehabiliation Institute of Chicago, University of Utah, Northwestern University, DARPA, the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, the University of Twente, and the Technical University, Delft.