Michael Lewek, PT, PhD

EMAIL: mlewek@med.unc.edu

PERSONAL WEBSITE: https://www.med.unc.edu/healthsciences/physical/directory/dr-michael-lewek-pt/

PUBLICATIONS: Publications Link

As a clinical scientist (PT/PhD), I have a unique combination of clinical and research skills that make me ideally suited to lead, or contribute to, a range of rehabilitation research projects. Most of my lab’s work involves understanding, and treating gait impairments in people with stroke and Parkinson disease (PD). My clinical training and experiences as a Physical Therapist have provided me with the skills needed for physical rehabilitation. Over the course of my career, I have worked hard to merge research tools related to biomechanics, energetics, neural control of movement, and motor learning to understand the needs and wants of patients as they recover mobility after injury or disorder. With my outstanding collaborators (Eran Dayan and Nina Browner), we are making important discoveries regarding available mechanisms for motor learning in people with PD. This exciting area of research is of critical need for people with PD. Due to the degenerative nature of PD, it is critical to attain long-term retention of training effects through effective motor learning. Likewise, I have joined with colleagues in Computer Science (Fuchs, Szafir, Szafir, and Bertasius) as we develop novel augmented reality interfaces to enhance the care of people with PD.
With respect to people post-stroke, I work with Helen Huang in BME and JM Baratta in PM&R to develop real-time prediction algorithms to move towards scenarios that avoid gait-related trips. Additionally, I have teamed up with Greg Sawicki (Georgia Tech) and Jason Franz (BME) to understand how to best teach people post-stroke to learn how to use an ankle exoskeleton for the purposes of enhancing push-off during walking. Overall, I have demonstrated my expertise in clinical gait, rehabilitation science, and motor learning in the past, and am eager to continue applying these skills and experience to target rehabilitation strategies for people with PD and stroke. Over the course of my career, I have been fortunate to work with interdisciplinary teams of physicians, biomedical engineers, computer scientists, and other physical therapists.