Inaugural lecture on Biomechanics of Motorsport

Dr Robin Kerr today gave his inaugural lecture on ‘Biomechanics in Motorsport’ to students studying on various courses at the TORT Centre.

Dr Kerr is one of our Alumni who studied an Intercalated BMSc at the Institute of Motion Analysis & Research (IMAR) at the TORT Centre where his research was conducted on ‘Assessing the influence of footwear on lower limb muscle activity’ supervised by Professor Rami Abboud and published in the top rated Journal of Orthopaedic Research. He graduated in 2007 from the University of Dundee with scientific research (BMsc (Hons)) and medical (MB ChB (Hons)) degrees.

Dr Kerr is now a GP at Teviot Medical Practice (Hawick) in the Scottish Borders who specialises in using the biomechanics knowledge he gained at IMAR to help patients with musculoskeletal problems. He also currently works as a Doctor covering sporting events such as the Velodrome at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow and the Formula 1 British Grand Prix (2011-present). An important element of his work is in vehicle extrication at sporting events, which by coincidence is research that has been previously carried out at IMAR.

“It is always a pleasure to meet up with our valued graduates but even better when they become part of our excellent external teaching faculty here at the TORT Centre”, said Professor Rami Abboud. “Robin has had a varied and exciting career since he graduated and we are delighted that he is sharing his sporting biomechanics experiences with our current student intakes in what is an entirely new topic to our curriculum. Apart from being informative and entertaining, Robin’s talk perfectly highlighted exactly why academic research should be carried out; it can change lives for the better”.

Dr Kerr added: "I was delighted to return to the TORT Centre to give my first lecture having previously thoroughly enjoyed my productive time there as a student. It was great to see some friendly familiar faces and meet some new ones too. My wife described the opportunity for me to talk about biomechanics, medicine and motorsport to an audience as my 'dream job' and it did not disappoint!"