Hugh Herr

Hugh Miller Herr
Aimee Mullins watches Hugh Herr do a climbing demonstration at the Media Lab's May 9, 2007 symposium "h2.0: new minds, new bodies, new identities"
Born	(1964-10-25) October 25, 1964 (age 60) Lancaster, Pennsylvania
Nationality	American
Alma mater	Millersville University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University
Occupation(s)	Academic, Engineer, and Computer Scientist
Scientific career
Fields	biophysics, physics
Institutions	Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Website	MIT Media Lab, Biomechatronics group

Hugh Herr (born October 25, 1964) is an American engineer and computer scientist.

The youngest of five siblings of a Mennonite family from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Hugh Herr was a prodigy rock climber: by age eight, he had scaled the face of the 11,627-foot Mount Temple in the Canadian Rockies, and by 17 he was acknowledged to be one of the best climbers in the United States.^[1]

In January 1982, while attempting to summit Mount Washington in New Hampshire, Herr and a fellow climber were caught in a blizzard and stranded on the mountain for three nights in -20F degree temperatures. By the time they were rescued, the climbers had suffered severe frostbite. Both of Herr’s legs had to be amputated below the knees; his companion, Jeff Batzer, lost his left lower leg, the toes on his right foot, and the fingers on his right hand. During the rescue attempt, volunteer Albert Dow was killed by an avalanche.^[1]

Following months of surgeries and rehabilitation, Herr was doing what doctors told him was unthinkable: climbing again. Using specialized prostheses that he designed, he created prosthetic feet with high toe stiffness that made it possible to stand on small rock edges the width of a coin, and titanium-spiked feet that assisted him in ascending steep ice walls. He used these prostheses to alter his height to avoid awkward body positions and to grab hand and foot holds previously out of research. His height could range from five to eight feet. As a result of using the prostheses, Herr climbed at a more advanced level than he had before the accident, making him the first person with a major amputation to compete in an elite-level sporting event against able-bodied persons.^{[2] [3]}

After his climbing career, Herr began to focus on academics, previously an area of little interest to him. He earned an undergraduate degree in physics at a local college, Millersville University, and a master's degree in mechanical engineering at MIT, followed by a PhD in biophysics from Harvard University. While a postdoctoral fellow at MIT in biomedical devices, he began working on advanced leg prostheses and orthoses--devices that emulate the functionality of the human leg.^[1]

Herr’s story has been told by Alison Osius in Second Ascent, The Story of Hugh Herr, a Discovery Channel feature story, and in a 2002 National Geographic movie, Ascent: The Story of Hugh Herr.

Currently, Herr is an associate professor in MIT’s Program in Media Arts and Sciences and in the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology. As head of the Biomechatronics research group at the MIT Media Lab, he focuses on developing wearable robotic systems that serve to augment human physical capability.

Herr has published over 60 peer-reviewed papers in the field of rehabilitation science and is the holder (or co-holder) of more than 10 patents^[4] related to assistive devices, including those for a computer-controlled artificial knee^[5], commercially available as the Rheo Knee^[6] an active ankle-foot orthosis, and the world's first powered ankle-foot prosthesis.^[7]

These devices are advancing an emerging field of engineering science that applies principles of biomechanics and neural control to guide the designs of human rehabilitation and augmentative devices. The goal is to rehabilitate individuals that have undergone limb amputation or have suffered a pathology, and also to augment human physical capability for those with normal in-act physiologies.

The computer-controlled knee, which is outfitted with a microprocessor that continually senses the joint’s position and the loads applied to the limb, was named to the list of Top Ten Inventions in the health category by TIME magazine in 2004.^[8] The robotic ankle-foot prosthesis, which mimics the action of a biological leg and, for the first time, provides transtibial amputees with a natural gait, was named to the same TIME top-ten list in 2007.^[9]

In 2007, Herr was presented with the 13th annual Heinz Award for Technology the Economy and Employment.^[10] He is also the recipient of the Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Leadership Award (2005).^[11]

Herr was a member of a team of seven experts in biomechanics and physiology from six universities that conducted experiments on Oscar Pistorius, the South African bilateral amputee track athlete who had been banned by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) from attempting to qualify for the 400-meter race at the Beijing Olympics.^[12] A portion of these results were presented to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne, Switzerland in May 2008, which resulted in reversing the ban. This allowed Pistorius to become the first disabled athlete to attempt to qualify against able-bodied athletes for an Olympic event.^[13] The full findings of the team's experiments were published in the June 18, 2009 issue of the Journal of Applied Physiology.^[14]

• Spirit of Da Vinci Award (2008) ^[15]
• Heinz Award in Technology, the Economy and Employment (2007)^[16]
• TIME magazine Top Ten Inventions 2004^[8]
• TIME magazine Top Ten Inventions 2007^[9]
• Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Leadership Award (2005)^[17]
• Science magazine Next Wave: Best of 2003
• Young American Award (1990)
• United States College Academic Team (1990)
• Sports Hall of Fame (1989)
• With the Providence VA Center for Restorative and Regenerative Medicine and Brown University, a $7.2 million grant from the US Department of Veterans Affairs to create "biohybrid" limbs to restore natural function to amputees. (2004)

• Boston Magazine "Best Foot Forward," 2/09
• Esquire "Hugh Herr's New Parts," 11/30/06
• Wired Italy "Hugh Herr: L’impronta dell'evoluzione," 5/13/09
• National Geographic Channel "Ascent: The Story of Hugh Herr"
• MIT News "Herr wins $250,000 Heinz Award" 9/12/07