University of Wisconsin Stout | Wisconsin's Polytechnic University

Bertram N. Ezenwa, Distinguished Scientist for the Discovery Center and STEM College at the University of Wisconsin-Stout Wisconsin, received a B.S. degree in Physics from the University of Nigeria Nsukka, Nigeria in 1975, and M.S. and Ph.D in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon Canada, in 1981, and 1986 respectively. After completing his Ph.D. studies, he was a post-doctoral fellow in the biomedical engineering department at Wright State University in Dayton Ohio from 1987 to 1988, and director of engineering development at the National Center for Rehabilitation Engineering at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio from 1988 to 1992.

From 1988-1992, Ezenwa was a Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering and an Adjunct Clinical Faculty member in the School of Graduate Studies at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio. Dr. Ezenwa joined the Detroit Medical Center Rehabilitation Institute of Michigan as Program Director for Rehabilitation Engineering and the Rehabilitation Engineering Department from January 1992 to June 1999. He was Assistant Professor in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Wayne State University School of Medicine from 1992 to 1999, and Adjunct Assistant Professor in Mechanical Engineering at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan from 1993 to 2000. From 2001 to 2006 Ezenwa taught at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He was Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering in the College of Engineering, and Associate Professor in the Occupational Therapy Department in the College of Health Sciences. Fromm 2006 to 2010 Ezenwa became Senior Scientist in the College of Health Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. In January 2010, he became Distinguished Scientist for Medical Device Innovations in The Discovery Center and the College of STEM at the University of Wisconsin-Stout.

Dr. Ezenwa is a Member of the Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineers (IEEE), former Assistant Editor, and Associate Editor IEEE Transactions on Rehabilitation Engineering from 1994 - 1999. In 1997 He was the Theme Chair for the Clinical Engineering Symposium IEEE EMBS Conference and Session Chair for the Clinical Engineering / Education IEEE EMBS Conference. He is past and present member of IEEE Neural and Rehabilitation Engineering Society, IEEE Man Systems and Cybernetics.

Ezenwa is also involved with research to aid persons with disabilities. Completed projects funded by the National Science Foundation and given to persons with disabilities can be seen at http://nsf-pad.bme.uconn.edu) under Ezenwa at Wayne State University and at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Ezenwa’s current research interests involve preventing collateral damage during prosthetic hip revision arthroplasty. The specific objective of this research is innovative dislodge of the prosthesis without damage of soft and hard bone tissues, or re-deposition residual PMMA, a process that will drastically reduce the procedure time, and patient recovery. His other research is focused on preventing blood pooling in patients unable to exercise due to immobilization, age, or medical condition. The specific objective of this research is to energize muscle fiber types at corresponding twitch frequencies to efficiently elicit muscle contraction, and the performance contraction and release characteristics to cause increase regional blood flow and prevent blood pooling. Eznewa’s other research involves dynamic control of lower limb prosthetic socket interface pressure. The specific objective of this research is to overcome, in real-time, variations in prosthetic socket interface pressure which can change due to daily activities such as running, jumping, leaning and lifting unaccounted for during prosthetic fitting by embedded prediction and real-time subsystem strategy.

As we respond to specific demands from the medical community, the physical models developed from physiologic subsystems with MIMICS software, modeled mathematical analysis with COMSOL Multi-physics and experimentally verified data allow us to observe the innovation phenomenon at the system level of performance.