COM employee spotlight

Name:  Joel Weisenburger

Title:  Research scientist

Hometown:  Elkhorn, Neb.

Talk about your job and what you like best about it: 

I work in a lab that evaluates orthopedic joint replacement components such as artificial knees and hips. These components – made from advanced plastics and metals (or ceramics) – are used when an aging patient’s articular cartilage starts to fail (arthritis). 

The goal of these devices is to help reduce the patient’s pain and return to a more active lifestyle, and, hopefully, last for the rest of the patient’s life. Therefore, the devices must be very durable and not wear excessively, as the body can react to wear debris and cause implant failure.  

The way we test for this in our lab is to install the joint replacement components on simulators that apply the forces and motions of walking, and we let them "walk" for a long time, stopping to weigh components from time-to-time to determine how much they’re wearing. 

We also have developed award-winning technology to assist the orthopedic surgeon in getting the components placed correctly on the bones. We accomplished this by using 3D navigation along with an advanced computer interface to guide the surgical instruments to ensure that the bone is cut in exactly the right place for the implant chosen. 

Being at the intersection of engineering, science, and medicine is extremely exciting and rewarding for me, but my favorite thing of all about this job is the positive impact our research has on patients.

List three things people may not know about you:

I had a pretty big year in 2017.  I got married to my wife after dating almost six years, and we bought our first house. This year we are going to travel a lot while we still can before settling down a bit.

I sing in two bands – a hard rock band currently finishing our fourth album, as well as an electronic pop project.

There’s a long list of movies that I’m kind of embarrassed I haven’t seen.  On that list are all of the "Godfather" movies.