Grayce Wicall Gauthier Professor in Mechanical Science and Engineering Elizabeth Hsiao-Wecksler has been named a recipient of the 2026 Dean’s Award for Innovation Impact from The Grainger College of Engineering.
This award recognizes exceptional individuals who are working at the early stages of the innovation life cycle to turn their research into products that benefit the world. Candidates are selected from the pool of faculty who made invention disclosures to the Office of Technology Management during the previous academic year.
Hsiao-Wecksler leads the Human Dynamics and Controls Laboratory (HDCL), applying principles from user-centered design, soft and hard robotics, wearables, musculoskeletal biomechanics, and movement analysis. The group’s work has been supported by NSF, NIH, Dept of Homeland Security, and the Jump ARCHES program at Illinois. She is also director of Applied Health Technology and Design in Illinois Grainger Engineering.
Her group is currently focused on three main research areas that aim to improve the lives of people with physical or mental disability: the PURE (Personalized Unique Rolling Experience), a compact, self-balancing mobility device for manual wheelchair users; robotic training simulators that mimic behaviors of human patients to help healthcare learners practice and improve their clinical techniques used during neurological examinations; and wearable intelligent technologies to afford clinicians and researchers focusing on psychosocial and behavioral issues, such as stress and anxiety, with real-time multimodal data to assess human function in the real world.
She will formally receive the award at the Engineering Awards Convocation on April 27.