Andris Freivalds

Dr. Andris Freivalds is Professor of Industrial Engineering and the Director of The Center for Cumulative Trauma Disorders at the Pennsylvania State University. He obtained a Ph.D. in Bioengineering in 1979 from the University of Michigan while assisting on the development of its 3D Static Strength Prediction Model. He later held a Faculty Summer Research Fellowship at the Bioengineering and Biodynamics Division of Aerospace Medical Research Laboratory at Wright Patterson AFB in Ohio, during which time he became proficient with and developed a neuromusculature for the Articulated Total Body Model. Since then, he has focused on the reduction of cumulative trauma disorders (CTD) in U.S. industries through ergonomic tool and workplace design. This effort led to the founding of the Center for Cumulative Trauma Disorders with the cooperation of the Ben Franklin Partnership of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. This center has served over 90 small Pennsylvania companies in controlling their workplace hazards for the last 20 years. As part of the services to better quantify and predict the stresses of workers employed on hazardous jobs, the Penn State CTD Risk Index and the ‘touch’ glove were developed and with the cooperation of the Hershey Medical Center several retrospective epidemiological studies were conducted to better understand both work factors and individual attributes on an individual's likelihood for developing carpal tunnel syndrome. More recently, he has been working with Dr. Neil Sharkey to measure tendon forces during gripping in cadaver forearms. Much of the above industrial experience has been incorporated into the current textbook as well as an introductory industrial engineering textbook Methods, Standards and Work Design (McGraw-Hill, 2009). He is a Fellow of the Ergonomics Society and a member of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society and the American Society of Biomechanics. In addition he has mentored 18 Ph.D. students, most of who are now faculty members at various universities around the world.