Dr Michael Berthaume

I am a Senior Lecturer and Deputy Head of Division in the Division of Mechanical Engineering and Design, School of Engineering. I also serve as treasurer to LSBU's LGBTQ+ organisation (SoNet), and sit on the School's Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) committee. I originally studied mechanical engineering and (biological) anthropology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst before moving to Europe and completing postdoctoral researcher positions in both bioengineering and anthropology. These positions were at the University of Hull, the Max Planck Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology, Durham University, and Imperial College London. In September 2019, I joined LSBU.

Transdisciplinary research is the future, providing a holistic view of problems and challenges, enabling them to be addressed and solved in new, novel manners. My career goal is to establish the independent, transdisciplinary field of anthroengineering. Anthroengineering is an approach that uses theories, methods and/or data from both anthropology and engineering to address questions within and beyond both disciplines (https://doi.org/10.1098/rsfs.2020.0056).
I use anthroengineering in three ways:
1. Primate evolutionary biomechanics: Here, I investigate how biomechanical forces affected primate and human evolution. I am most interested in how diet and masticatory forces have affected Plio-Pleistocene hominin evolution. I used statistical shape analyses (e.g., geometric morphometrics, dental topography) and biomechanical models (e.g., finite element analysis (FEA) of biological systems)
2. Human biological variation: Humans come in various shapes and sizes, and this has biomechanical consequences. I am particularly interested in the role of sesamoid bones, especially the fabella, in human movement, and how factors like nutrition affect masticatory biomechanical performance. I have recently started an EPSRC funded project with a team of psychiatrists and physiotherapists investigating the masticatory biomechanics of individuals with eating disorders with the aim of helping them rebuild their atrophied chewing muscles.
3. Prosthetics in low-and middle-income countries (LMICs): I work primarily with war victims and diabetic amputees in Sri Lanka, focusing focus on the design and creation of prosthetics which fulfill end-user needs, using methods like ethnography, surveys, structured interviews, and database analyses.
I am a fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute (RAI) and member of the Exceed Research Network (ERN).

Deputy Head of Division; Head of Research and Enterprise and Committee

Statics, dynamics, materials science, failure analysis