PhD student wins award at national ergonomics conference

Monday, October 28, 2013
Diana DeCarvalho holds Founders' Award plaque.

Pictured left to right: Brenda Mallat, President of ACE; Diana DeCarvalho; and Dr. Katherine Trask, Student Award Committee Chair.

University of À¶Ý®ÊÓƵ Kinesiology PhD student, Diana DeCarvalho, won the Founders’ Award for Doctoral Research at the for her paper "Back pain and sitting: are chairs or breaks the answer?â€

The paper examined the effects of chair design and walking breaks on low back pain in participants completing two hours of data entry tasks. Low back pain associated with sitting is arguably one of the largest problems facing the field of office ergonomics.