Dr. Todd’s research deals with applying principles of mechanical engineering design to problems of the human body. This includes both the design and analysis of devices, particularly assistive technology, and the study of the body itself as a mechanism. The latter work has dealt with problems in the areas of orthopedics and soft tissue mechanics. In all of these areas, non-invasive imaging has been used to gather geometric data on the body. Recent projects have included the development of a finite element pre-processor which uses MRI data as input, characterization of the material properties of adipose tissue, and modeling the human body in various positions to determine its inertial properties.