







































VOLUME 6, ISSUE 2 

 2023 
 

Articles in this special issue has been invited and reviewed by Dr. Silvia Ursula Raschke and Dr. Hossein Gholizadeh. 

 

D E S I G N I N G  T H E  F U T U R E :  3 D  P R I N T I N G ' S  

R E V O L U T I O N  I N  P R O S T H E T I C S  &  O R T H O T I C S  

S T A K E H O L D E R  P E R S P E C T I V E S   

PRINTING 
3D 

PUBLISHER: CANADIAN ONLINE PUBLICATION GROUP   

S P E C I A L  I S S U E  

CPOJ 

ISSN: 2561-987X 

https://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/cpoj/EDitorinchief


 

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Fiedler G, Samosky J. User-centered design of limb prostheses: a new university course designed to spark interest in orthotics & prosthetics for bioengineering 
students. Canadian Prosthetics & Orthotics Journal. 2023; Volume 6, Issue 2, No.2. https://doi.org/10.33137/cpoj.v6i2.41789 

 

 

STAKEHOLDER PERSPECTIVES 

 

USER-CENTERED DESIGN OF LIMB PROSTHESES: A NEW UNIVERSITY COURSE 

DESIGNED TO SPARK INTEREST IN ORTHOTICS & PROSTHETICS FOR 

BIOENGINEERING STUDENTS 

Fiedler G1*, Samosky J.2  

1 Department of Rehabilitation Science and Technology, School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, United States. 
2 Department of Bioengineering, Swanson School of Engineering, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, United States. 

 
 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

INTRODUCTION   

Much excitement has accompanied the rise of 3D printing 

and the associated benefits for low-cost rapid prototyping. 

There is no shortage of promising applications for this 

technology, especially in light of the continued technical 

advancements that make it ever more versatile and easier 

to use. 1 The fields of orthotics and prosthetics (O&P) are 

increasingly embracing the benefits of 3D printing,2 and 

there are many exciting developments3 which may help 

make established approaches more economical and – 

importantly – allow a fresh look at previously unsolved 

clinical issues, including problems such as lacking access 

to care, limited customizability, and restricted functionality. 

Of these issues, access to care is a major one, especially 

for patients in low-income countries with insufficient medical 

systems,4 but also in North America, where shortages of 

qualified labor can be predicted based on the age profile of 

the practitioner population and the trajectories of disease 

rates for conditions such as diabetes in the general 

population.5, 6  

There is a recognized bottleneck in growing the O&P 

profession, namely, the rate at which new practitioners are 

trained in the various educational institutions. There were, 

at last count, 14 accredited O&P master programs offered 

across the United States,7. in addition to two in Canada, 

altogether representing the capacity of graduating perhaps 

400 new professionals each year. This is perilously close to 

the replacement rate, considering that of some 14,000 

active practitioners, assuming an average career duration 

of 35 years, an average of 400 are reaching retirement age 

each year as well. Against this background, the field can 

barely afford to have any O&P student either fail to graduate 

or, upon entering the workforce, switch into a different 

career or become otherwise lost to the profession. 

 
OPEN  ACCESS 

ABSTRACT 

There is a current need to increase recruitment in orthotics and prosthetics, and a promising approach 

is to increase awareness, interest and cross-disciplinary engagement in O&P among students of allied 

disciplines such as bioengineering. We describe a new interdisciplinary course we jointly developed at 

the University of Pittsburgh and deployed for the first time in the spring of 2023. The course was built 

on core foci of human-centered design, design thinking, experiential learning, 3D printing, creative 

problem-solving and prototyping. We leveraged a real-world project-based learning approach that 

included early and ongoing involvement of student teams with clients who used prosthetics. We 

explored creating a learning environment in which bioengineering students were motivated to learn 

about the O&P field by partnering with clients to investigate their unmet prosthetic needs and invent 

new solutions, with computer-aided design and 3D printing as key enabling technologies. Each student 

team produced an individually designed and fitted device for a specific application for a person with 

limb difference. Student feedback was positive throughout with several recipients expressing 

enthusiasm about the field of O&P and about the opportunity to work with actual patients. Several 

students stated their new-found interest in pursuing a career in the field. We believe that this sort of 

class offering could be implemented in many institutions that host O&P graduate programs, to raise 

awareness of the profession and attract more and better prepared applicants.   

CITATION 

Fiedler G, Samosky J. User-centered 

design of limb prostheses: a new 

university course designed to spark 

interest in orthotics & prosthetics for 

bioengineering students. Canadian 

Prosthetics & Orthotics Journal. 

2023; Volume 6, Issue 2, No.2. 

https://doi.org/10.33137/cpoj.v6i2.41

789 

KEYWORDS 

User-Centered Design, Design 

Thinking, 3D Printing, Prototyping, 

Education, Outreach, Professional 

Development 

* CORRESPONDING AUTHOR: 

Goeran Fiedler, PhD 

Department of Rehabilitation Science and Technology, School of Health 
and Rehabilitation Sciences, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, United 
States.  

E-mail: gfiedler@pitt.edu 

ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1532-1248 

Journal Homepage: https://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/cpoj/index 

Volume 6, Issue 2, Article No.2. 2023 

 

 

Special Issue 

https://doi.org/10.33137/cpoj.v6i2.41789
https://doi.org/10.33137/cpoj.v6i2.41789
https://doi.org/10.33137/cpoj.v6i2.41789
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1532-1248
https://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/cpoj/index


 

2 

Fiedler G, Samosky J. User-centered design of limb prostheses: a new university course designed to spark interest in orthotics & prosthetics for bioengineering 
students. Canadian Prosthetics & Orthotics Journal. 2023; Volume 6, Issue 2, No.2. https://doi.org/10.33137/cpoj.v6i2.41789 

CANADIAN PROSTHETICS & ORTHOTICS JOURNAL 

ISSN: 2561-987X SPARK INTEREST IN ORTHOTICS & PROSTHETICS FOR BIOENGINEERING STUDENTS 
Fiedler G, and Samosky J, 2023 (Special Issue) 

Recruiting students who are both passionate about the 

profession and well prepared to be successful in it is a key 

to mitigating those issues. Ironically, the aforementioned 

buzz around 3D printing may be one vehicle to help with 

student engagement and recruitment. O&P is still a 

somewhat obscure field and is not at front of mind as a 

viable career choice for many high school or college 

students pondering their professional future. This is 

supported by anecdotal evidence: a recurring theme in the 

essay portions of most applications to O&P graduate 

programs is how the applicant has only by fortuitous 

happenstance become aware of the existence of the 

profession. This generally led to rapidly realizing its various 

exciting characteristics, including the ability to directly help 

patients, working with a broad range of materials and 

techniques, and the potential to have an impact and 

contribute to the advancement of the small field. While 

difficult to quantify, it is safe to assume many students do 

not apply for O&P graduate schools simply because they 

are unaware of the field and its profound impact on the lives 

of patients. Of course, having additional applicants would 

allow for more selective admission processes and/or 

expanded class sizes, which increases both the quality and 

quality of graduates to meet the needs of the field. 

Again, based on the personal experience of one author 

(GF), media reporting on applications of 3D printing (a much 

more commonly known subject) for creating prostheses has 

often delivered a “lightbulb moment” for introducing young 

people to O&P (if the journalist had gotten around to 

reporting that there is indeed a specialized profession and 

not just hobbyists providing these devices!). There may 

therefore be ways of actively bridging connections with 

related technologies such as 3D printing to increase the 

applicant pool. In the university context, this includes 

offering introductory classes aimed at graduate and 

undergraduate from compatible backgrounds. For instance, 

students in medical engineering or bioengineering 

programs are often quite receptive to the idea of entering 

O&P when they are exposed to it in a practical way, often 

having had very compatible motivations for starting their 

engineering studies, including being drawn to problem-

solving and helping people, and interest in novel 

technologies. With a strong background in physics, biology, 

materials science, problem-solving, design and prototyping, 

bioengineering students are also quite well prepared to 

succeed in the O&P curriculum. The first step could be an 

elective class offering that helps them fulfil some of the 

requirements for their undergrad degree while effectively 

introducing them to O&P. The authors have recently 

developed and pilot-tested such a class with promising 

success and believe that this approach could be adopted in 

other institutions as well. 

METHODOLOGY 

The three-credit course was divided in two distinct halves: 

1) a theoretical part to introduce the students to the basics 

of prosthetic management of limb loss, including the typical 

patient profile, prosthetic componentry, and workflows in the 

clinic in the first seven weeks of the semester, and 2) a 

practical part that was dedicated to designing and 

fabricating an actual prototype device in small group work, 

capped by final presentations/demonstrations in the 

remaining seven weeks. Beyond the lecture hall, class 

meetings were scheduled in the various fabrication 

laboratories within the institution, including the 3D-printing 

lab and the O&P teaching lab. Guest speakers were invited 

for several sessions to round out the covered content and 

provide interesting perspective. A written exam was 

administered at the midterm point and factored in the grade 

composition along with short quizzes and the final project 

reports and presentations. 

We decided early in course design that, while computer-

aided design (CAD) and 3D printing would be core enabling 

technologies presented in the course, we wanted the prime 

focus of our students’ learning experience to be people who 

have unmet needs in prosthetic design. Putting a person at 

the center of the learning and design process is foundational 

to user-centered design or human-centered design,8,9 and 

stands in contrast to approaches that center a particular 

technology or technical method in the learning process. We 

adopted a design thinking approach which emphasizes 

empathy, deep investigation of problems before pursuing 

solutions, broad ideation before converging on trial 

solutions, early and frequent prototyping of trial solutions, 

and an iterative, empirical, evidence-based approach to 

making design decisions (rather than making choices based 

on untested and aspirational assumptions). 

We particularly emphasized the importance of problem 

discovery as an essential and foundational tool to achieving 

success in creating a solution that will ultimately be effective 

for a user or client in real-world circumstances. Problem 

discovery involves first determining what is the “right” 

problem or problems to solve among the myriad possible 

problem formulations that may arise in a real-world design 

context. This process exercises and leverages basic human 

skills like talking to another person and learning to actively 

listen in ways that develop empathy between designer and 

client, and ideally actively engages the client as a co-

designer in the solution-finding process, rather than as a 

“subject”.  

To implement these concepts and methods from design 

thinking in our course in a practical and impactful manner, 

we arranged for three users of prosthetics (clients of author 

GF) to participate in the 3rd weekly class session and then 

continue to work with our students during the 14-week 

semester. To increase the impact and student engagement 

of this introductory experience, we employed a “dramatic 

reveal” of these clients to the students during a class 

session. This enabled the students to practice skills in 

listening, interviewing and problem discovery within minutes 

https://doi.org/10.33137/cpoj.v6i2.41789


 

3 

Fiedler G, Samosky J. User-centered design of limb prostheses: a new university course designed to spark interest in orthotics & prosthetics for bioengineering 
students. Canadian Prosthetics & Orthotics Journal. 2023; Volume 6, Issue 2, No.2. https://doi.org/10.33137/cpoj.v6i2.41789 

CANADIAN PROSTHETICS & ORTHOTICS JOURNAL 

ISSN: 2561-987X SPARK INTEREST IN ORTHOTICS & PROSTHETICS FOR BIOENGINEERING STUDENTS 
Fiedler G, and Samosky J, 2023 (Special Issue) 

of the topics being introduced in the classroom. In the first 

hour of this class session the students received an 

introduction to design thinking, with illustrative examples 

provided for assistive technology applications. This was 

followed by an overview of problem discovery and an 

introduction to interviewing techniques. The students 

engaged in a preliminary exercise in which they interviewed 

each other. We then informed the students they would soon 

be able to apply the interviewing methods they just learned 

to better understand how to improve the prosthesis 

experience for several actual users of prosthetics – at which 

point we immediately welcomed our three clients into the 

classroom. After they briefly shared their backgrounds with 

the students, we formed multiple teams each consisting of 

one client and several students. These teams then spent 

about an hour in small-group discussion, providing the start 

of our students’ needs-finding process (Figure 1). 

We provided three prompts to our student teams before they 

began their interviews: 

• Before we interviewed our client/design partner, 

we thought: 

• After our interview, we now know: 

• One thing we were surprised to learn was: 

Each team then shared their answers to the above prompts 

during a wrap-up class discussion. We were highly 

impressed by the insights shared by the students, often 

indicating ways their assumptions going into the interviews 

had been significantly changed by speaking with an actual 

user of a prosthesis. Feedback from the students was also 

overwhelmingly positive, with many indicating this 

experience marked a watershed moment in their motivation 

toward the course content and their enthusiasm for 

engaging in new prosthetic designs to address specific 

client needs. 

 

Figure 1: A student team interviews a user of prostheses at the 
start of a process of understanding unmet needs and discovering 
problems to design solutions for using a human-centered 
methodology. 

RESULTS 

While the limb loss levels of the invited patient models – in 

this case including individuals with trans-femoral, trans-

radial, and trans-humeral amputations as well as one with 

congenital hand defect – somewhat predetermined the 

nature of the student-designed devices, it was deliberately 

left an open-ended question what clinical need exactly each 

group would identify and try to solve. Eventually, the four 

group projects in this iteration of the course were (A) an 

adapter to improve grip on a cello bow for the user of a 

myoelectric hand (Figure 2), (B) an adapter to facilitate safe 

operation of a manual-shift sportscar for the user of a body-

powered prosthetic arm (Figure 3), (C) a prosthesis-

compatible elastic sleeve with vibration motors for pain relief 

for a trans-femoral prosthesis user, and (D) a self-leveling 

prosthetic wrist joint intended to improve safe carrying of 

open containers. Projects were evaluated using a grading 

matrix with the criteria Design Selection, Prototype 

Development, Documentation, and Justification (Table 1). 

All students easily received passing grades. 

 

Figure 2: Cello Bow holding adapter. 

 

 

Figure 3: Stick-shift to prosthetic hook adapter. 

Feedback on the course, both from the students and the 

patient models, was positive throughout. All enjoyed the 

collaborative and creative atmosphere. The engineering 

students were especially appreciative of the opportunity to 

work with the actual user of their designs and clearly were 

motivated to put forth their best effort. The ability to observe 

the direct results of their work provided a sense of 

achievement and some memorable moments, for instance, 

when on one occasion the entire lab quieted down to listen 

https://doi.org/10.33137/cpoj.v6i2.41789


 

4 

Fiedler G, Samosky J. User-centered design of limb prostheses: a new university course designed to spark interest in orthotics & prosthetics for bioengineering 
students. Canadian Prosthetics & Orthotics Journal. 2023; Volume 6, Issue 2, No.2. https://doi.org/10.33137/cpoj.v6i2.41789 

CANADIAN PROSTHETICS & ORTHOTICS JOURNAL 

ISSN: 2561-987X SPARK INTEREST IN ORTHOTICS & PROSTHETICS FOR BIOENGINEERING STUDENTS 
Fiedler G, and Samosky J, 2023 (Special Issue) 

to our cellist patient play a beautiful tune in testing his new 

bow adapter.  

Structured student feedback on the class experience, as is 

routinely solicited by the institution was encouraging as well, 

with an overall rating of 4.89 on a 0-5 scale. Positive student 

comments included statements like: “Overall, this was a 

great course that taught me essential hands–on skills that I 

have yet to learn in my engineering coursework. Working 

with patient models was also an experience that I am very 

grateful to have after taking this course” and “Bringing in the 

patient models and introducing them to us is super helpful.” 

Where students noted room for improvement, they wished 

for more time to be allocated to the design and prototyping 

work and that a nominal budget for material purchases be 

provided. 

CALL TO ACTION 

Having an O&P education program housed within a 

university offers great opportunity for the recruitment of 

talented young engineers into the next generation of 

practitioners. We believe it is time well spent for O&P faculty 

to offer respective coursework, especially when they can 

team up with colleagues from other departments to do so. 

The popularity of 3D printing among students can be 

leveraged by designing a class to highlight this central topic 

as an enabling technology while centering the overall 

design process in a human-centered approach that 

maintains a top-level emphasis on the people whose unmet 

needs will be explored and serve as the focus for solution 

discovery. Students may initially come for the 3D printing 

but stay for the experience of working with patients how only 

Table 1: Grading rubric for project report (adapted, with permission, from knowlesteachers.org10) 

Criteria 

4 points 3 points 2 points 1 point 

Advanced - Exceeds 
expectations 

Competent - Meets 
expectations 

Progressing - Does not 
fully meet expectations 

Beginning - Does not 
meet expectations 

Design selection: can 
compare a range of 
design concepts, and 
select a preliminary 
design that best meets 
the identified constraints 
and criteria 

Deliberately and effectively 
uses initial testing, data 
and/or research to objectively 
support preliminary design 
selection. Defends preliminary 
design choice against other 
concepts in light of criteria 
and constraints (trade-offs) 
using an appropriate objective 
tool (e.g., decision matrix). 

Deliberately uses initial testing, 
data and/or research to 
subjectively support preliminary 
design selection. Defends 
preliminary design choice against 
other concepts in light of criteria 
and constraints (trade-offs). 

Uses data unsystematically 
for preliminary design 
selection. Selects 
preliminary design based on 
criteria that are poorly 
aligned with criteria or 
constraints. 

No data collected to 
support preliminary 
design selection. 
Evidence for 
preliminary design 
choice not logical or 
unfounded (choices 
made without 
rationale, or based on 
untested assumptions 
or “favorite” concepts) 

Prototype development: 
demonstrates form and 
functionality of the 
design by creating a 
working prototype. 

Prototype meets all 
constraints. Prototype 
functionality exceeds 
expectations of detailed final 
design. Prototype effectively 
communicates the form of the 
detailed final design with 
professional level quality. 

Prototype meets all constraints. 
Prototype functionality matches 
detailed final design. Prototype 
effectively communicates the 
form of the detailed final design, 
and exhibits appropriate 
quality/craftsmanship 

Prototype meets most but 
not all constraints. Prototype 
functionality partly matches 
expectations of detailed final 
design. Prototype roughly 
communicates the form of 
the detailed final design. 

Prototype meets few 
constraints. Prototype 
is insufficient to 
demonstrate basic 
functionality of 
detailed final design. 
Prototype does not 
communicate the 
basic form of the 
detailed final design. 

Documentation: create a 
documentation package 
that clearly explains the 
detailed final design and 
corresponding testing/ 
validation results. 

Design documentation is 
appropriately detailed and 
structured for the intended 
purpose and audience; 
extraneous information has 
been removed. 
Documentation includes 
tolerances for all necessary 
specifications. Documentation 
is polished and professional. 

Design documentation is 
appropriately detailed and 
structured for the intended 
purpose and audience. 
Documentation is sufficiently 
organized and includes all 
necessary specifications for 
assembly and/or operation. 
Documentation is well-organized, 

professional, and free of 
mechanical errors. 

Design documentation is 
detailed but may not be 
optimized for the designated 
purpose. Documentation is 
organized and includes most 
of the key parameters for 
assembly and/or operation 
and contains few mechanical 

errors. 

Design documentation 
is not appropriate for 
the designated 
audience. 
Documentation lacks 
crucial information. 
Documentation 
requires significant 
editing and/or 
formatting. 

Justification: can explain 
the benefits and 
weaknesses of the 
design, including 
opportunities, tradeoffs 
and ideas for further 
improvement 

Communicates the design’s 
strengths and limitations 
relative to competitor 
benchmarks and other design 
options. Evaluates design as 
well as opportunities and 
tradeoffs in light of criteria and 
constraints and defends the 
validity of metrics used. 
Recommends design 
improvements which are 
supported by objective 
evidence or data. 

Communicates the design’s 
strengths and limitations relative 
to other design options. 
Evaluates design as well as 
opportunities and tradeoffs in 
light of criteria and constraints. 
Recommends design 
improvements which are 
supported by subjective 
evidence. 

Communicates the design’s 
strengths relative to other 
design options. Evaluates 
design based on criteria and 
constraints. Recommends 
design improvements; no 
evidence is cited to support 
these recommendations. 

Does not consider 
other design options. 
Does not cite the 
criteria and constraints 
in evaluation of 
design. No 
suggestions for 
improvement are 
offered. 

 

https://doi.org/10.33137/cpoj.v6i2.41789


 

5 

Fiedler G, Samosky J. User-centered design of limb prostheses: a new university course designed to spark interest in orthotics & prosthetics for bioengineering 
students. Canadian Prosthetics & Orthotics Journal. 2023; Volume 6, Issue 2, No.2. https://doi.org/10.33137/cpoj.v6i2.41789 

CANADIAN PROSTHETICS & ORTHOTICS JOURNAL 

ISSN: 2561-987X SPARK INTEREST IN ORTHOTICS & PROSTHETICS FOR BIOENGINEERING STUDENTS 
Fiedler G, and Samosky J, 2023 (Special Issue) 

O&P can provide it. We encourage all colleagues to propose 

and provide such coursework where possible. 

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 

The authors thank the guest speakers, Jonathan Shulgach, Andrew 

Schoff, and Matthew Shaw, the patient models and students who 

have helped make this pilot course a success. 

DECLARATION OF CONFLICTING INTERESTS 

None. 

AUTHORS CONTRIBUTION 

Both authors contributed equally to the research and the writing of 

this manuscript. 

SOURCES OF SUPPORT 

“Classroom to Community: Designing and Inventing for Real-World 

Impact,” Pitt Seed Grant, University of Pittsburgh. 

REFERENCES 

1.Trenfield, S.J., Madla, C.M., Basit, A.W., Gaisford, S. The Shape 

of Things to Come: Emerging Applications of 3D Printing in 

Healthcare. In: Basit, A., Gaisford, S. (eds) 3D Printing of 

Pharmaceuticals. AAPS Adv. Pharm. Sci. Ser.2018. 

DOI:10.1007/978-3-319-90755-0_1 

2.Manero A, Smith P, Sparkman J, Dombrowski M, Courbin D, 

Kester A, et al. Implementation of 3D printing technology in the field 

of prosthetics: Past, present, and future. Int J Environ Res Public 

Health. 2019;16(9):1641. DOI: 10.3390/ijerph16091641 

3.Ribeiro D, Cimino SR, Mayo AL, Ratto M, Hitzig SL. 3D printing 

and amputation: a scoping review. Disabil Rehabil Assist Technol. 

2021;16(2):221-40. DOI:10.1080/17483107.2019.1646825 

4.Marino M, Pattni S, Greenberg M, Miller A, Hocker E, Ritter S, et 

al., editors. Access to prosthetic devices in developing countries: 

Pathways and challenges. 2015 IEEE global humanitarian 

technology conference (GHTC); 2015: IEEE. DOI: 

10.1109/GHTC.2015.7343953. 

5.Occupational Outlook Handbook [Internet]. US Bureau of Labor 

Statistics. 2023. [cited Sep 19, 2023]. Available from: 

https://www.bls.gov/ooh/healthcare/orthotists-and-

prosthetists.htm. 

6.Ziegler-Graham K, MacKenzie EJ, Ephraim PL, Travison TG, 

Brookmeyer R. Estimating the prevalence of limb loss in the United 

States: 2005 to 2050. Arch Phys Med Rehabil. 2008;89(3):422-9. 

DOI:10.1016/j.apmr.2007.11.005 

7.Orthotist / Prosthetist Programs [Internet]. Education NCoOaP. 

Alexabdria, VA2023. [cited Sep 19, 2023]. Available from: 

https://ncope.org/index.php/home-page-v2/academic-

programs/accredited-practitioner-programs/. 

8.The Field Guide to Human-Centered Design: A step-by-step 

guide that will get you solving problems like a designer [Internet]. 

IDEO.org. 2015. [cited Sep 19, 2023]. Available from: 

https://www.designkit.org/resources/1.html 

9.Melles M, Albayrak A, Goossens R. Innovating health care: key 

characteristics of human-centered design. Int J Qual Health Care. 

2021;33:37-44. DOI:10.1093/intqhc/mzaa127 

10.Engaging Math and Science Students in Engineering Design 

[Internet]. Knowles Academy, 2017. [cited Sep 19, 2023].  

Available from: https://knowlesteachers.org/wp-

content/uploads/2017/10/KnowlesEngineering_DesignProcessRu

bric.pdf 

AUTHORS SCIENTIFIC BIOGRAPHY 

Goeran Fiedler, PhD, is an associate 

professor for the Master of Science in 

Prosthetics and Orthotics program at the 

University of Pittsburgh. He holds 

graduate degrees in Clinical 

Engineering/Biomechanics from the 

University of Applied Sciences Giessen 

(Germany) and in Health Sciences from 

the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. 

He completed his post-doctoral training in 

the Department of Rehabilitation 

Medicine at the University of Washington 

in Seattle. He is also a credentialed 

Prosthetist & Orthotist with degrees from the German Chambers of 

Craft in Thuringia and in Lower Bavaria, as well as 12 years of 

clinical work experience. His research and teaching have the 

overall goal to find ways of raising the quality and quantity of 

prosthetic & orthotic device utilization, in order to realize outcome 

gains that are inexpensive to achieve and applicable to a large 

patient population.  

Joseph Samosky, PhD, is Associate 

Professor of Bioengineering in the 

Swanson School of Engineering at the 

University of Pittsburgh. He received his 

PhD in Medical Engineering from MIT in 

the Harvard-MIT Program in Health 

Sciences and Technology. Over the past 

decade he has designed, developed and 

deployed new courses to foster user-

centered design, innovation, creativity 

and project-based learning. Dr. Samosky 

has mentored over 1000 students in more 

than 200 design and innovation projects 

and his students have received numerous awards in design and 

innovation competitions. He has 8 issued patents to date. He also 

developed and directs the Swanson School of Engineering’s G34 

Design and Innovation Space, a student-centered home base for 

creative community, ideation, prototyping and invention. He 

received the School of Engineering’s Outstanding Educator award 

in 2018 and was named Higher Educator of the Year in 2023 by the 

Engineers Society of Western Pennsylvania. 

 

 

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