Profile
Shruti Turner
Prosthetics Research Engineer
My CV
-
Education:
School: Bradford Girls’ Grammar School (until 2010) Sixth Form: Welbeck, Defense Sixth Form College (2010-2012). University: University of Southampton (2012-2015 and 2016-2017), Imperial College London (2018-present)
-
Qualifications:
GCSEs, A levels, BEng Aeronautics and Astronautics, MSc Biomedical Engineering
-
Work History:
University of Southampton, Imperial College London, Decoded
-
Current Job:
PhD Student and Data Mentor
-
About Me:
Hi, I’m Shruti! I’m 25 and living in London. I always loved science and engineering and wanted to use my skills to help people.
-
Read more
My name is Shruti and I am 25 years old. I live in London, which is also where I work, but originally I am from Yorkshire. If you’re not sure where I am, you can find me with my headphones in listening to Harry Potter.
I think my favourite film ever is Disney’s Mulan (if you haven’t seen it, you really should!) and it has been my favourite film since I was about 6. My favourite snack is cheese and biscuits and my favourite drink is tea.
I love food and spending time with my friends. In my spare time I like to keep fit and healthy, and to travel when I can.
-
Read more
I spend my time researching into an area that’s really interesting to me: developing artificial legs for people who have lost theirs perhaps through illness or in the military. There are lots of really cool legs out there, some for skiing or sailing and other with computer controlled joints. My work is focused on making sure that people have the most comfortable legs possible so they can get up and about walk, skiing or doing whatever else they want!
I use a mixture of qualitative research methods, programming, electronics and data analysis to reach my goal.
I recently did a TEDxYouth talk sharing my research. You can watch it (it’s only 12 minutes) here if you’re interested in the work I do.
-
My Typical Day:
Each day is different: sometimes I’m reading papers to learn more, some days I’m computer programming, some days I’m writing papers to be published and other days I am teaching or testing with amputee participants to improve the technology.
-
Read more
When you do a PhD, there’s lots to keep you busy! The great thing about a PhD is that what you do with your days is decided by you. I have a supervisor to help guide me, but I don’t have a manager who gives me tasks to do every day. If I’m particularly tired one day, I can decide not to come into work until lunchtime, but if I’m really motivated on the weekend I can do some work then to get ahead. It’s all very flexible.
Generally, I like to get into the office for about 8am (because if I start early, I can finish early!) The first thing I do is sort my emails and see if there’s anything interesting or that needs my attention. Then I will start on my work.
As an engineer, there are lots of different things I need to be able to do to complete my research. There is the science and maths side of things to design solutions to make artificial legs more comfortable, but also I have to be able to write and give presentations so I can tell people about my work. I do a lot of programming too as I am writing a web application for people to use to help make artificial legs more comfortable.
I like to teach as well, so I teach both maths and programming to other students studying for their degrees in medicine and engineering. This doesn’t take too long, only a few hours a week so it is a nice break from my desk work.
-
The most exciting thing that's happened this year in my research area:
There’s lots happening with prosthetic limbs: people are finding ways to use brain signals to communicate with their prosthesis so we can control them like one that’s part of the body. There is lots of work being done to make prosthetic limbs accessible to people across the world, using 3D printing and other technologies to make low cost devices that people can afford in low income countries.
-
My latest work:
I am looking at the part of the prosthetic limb that attaches to the body. I’ve been working with surgeons, amputees and rehabilitation teams to find out what the problems are, so I can look at ways to solve them.
I have been able to create a picture of the pressure inside the socket to see how they are damaging amputees’ legs so that we can change how we make sockets and teach amputees to walk to stop this from happening in the future.
-
My favourite misconception about my area of science:
So many people think that as long as amputees have some really cool legs, with the latest designs and expensive computerised components that they’ll be better than humans, almost like robots. Unfortunately, so many people experience problems with their socket, even the paralympians you see on TV!