Mark Pierre, Ph.D.
Department of Biomedical Engineering (ND20)
Lerner Research Institute
9500 Euclid Avenue
Cleveland, Ohio 44195
Mark was born and raised in Fort Wayne, IN. In 1998, he completed his undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering at Purdue University in West Lafayette, IN. Each semester he received academic honors while competing as a NCAA athlete in Track and Field. During the summer, the applicant also developed his engineering and analytical skills by working as a design engineer. His responsibilities included: experimentally testing the efficacy of screw fasteners undergoing high vibrational space flight, drafting optical beam splitter components for geosynchronous environmental satellites, and experimentally testing the out-gassing of satellite assemblies under simulated space flight vacuum.
Recently, December 2004, Mark received his Ph.D. from the Biomedical Engineering Department at Case Western Reserve University (CWRU), Cleveland, OH. Under the guidance of Dr. Robert F. Kirsch he studied the postural stability of the human by examining the arm’s responds to displacement perturbations. While at CWRU, he also enhanced his analytical skills while gaining a foundation in physiological sciences and rehabilitation practices through both course work and laboratory experience. His coursework has focused on system level physiology and control system engineering. While he has expanded his analytical skills in the Motion Studies Laboratory at the L.B. Stokes Cleveland VA Medical Center and the FES center Laboratories at MetroHealth Medical Center. In these laboratories, he has received extensive training in human motor control following a spinal cord injury (SCI), functional testing to evaluate motor control, 3D motion analysis, EMG recording, and experimental design.
Currently Mark is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Biomedical Engineering Department at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation.