I am a Lecturer in Biomechanics and an Enterprise Fellow in the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Southampton and a Visiting Research Fellow in the Faculty of Physical & Applied Science at the University. I also held a prestigious Research Council's (UK) Roberts' Fellowship in Life Sciences Interface. Much of my research is working at the interface between engineering and rehabilitation. During my PhD I investigated the relationship between movement and function of the wrist and hand. I focused on investigating the differences in wrist movements and hand function between unimpaired and chronic stroke participants.

I work specifically on the evaluation and validation of health technologies. I am particularly interested in technologies that measure movement and function, and developing novel methods of capturing this information. I believe that in order to facilitate the next generation of healthcare provision, health technologies must be capable of capturing and presenting clinically useful, personalised information to both rehabilitationalists, patients and carers in environments that go beyond the traditional rehabilitation clinic.

I specialise in the kinematic and biomechanical assessment of hand function and I hold a patent in this field. I also work on projects investigating the use of smart textiles for rehabilitation, user-led design and evaluation of haptic devices, prosthetics, body sensor networks for patient monitoring in their home environments and health technology evaluation and assessment.

This website contains information about my research and academic interests. Please contact me if you need information on anything you see on this site.

If you are interested in knowing more about the Southampton Hand Assessment Procedure (SHAP), including hiring or buying kits for your own research, clinical practice or company, please take a look at the new SHAP website www.shap.ecs.soton.ac.uk.

We have launched a YouTube Channel for the Biomechanics Laboratory! Check out our videos from some of the research studies we're doing, including the hand biomechanics research. The Channel can be found here: University of Southampton Biomechanics.

Cheryl Metcalf, 2013