Fitsum Ermias Petros is a Ph.D. student in the Mechanical Engineering department at Columbia University. She completed her Bachelor of Science in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering with a certificate in Robotics and Intelligent Systems at Princeton University.
Fitsums' research focuses on understanding how humans combine sensory information (visual, vestibular, hearing, orientation, and touch, etc..) to interact with the world. Successful sensory integration is necessary for postural control and navigation. Faulty sensing or synthesis processes result in several movement disorders that lead to the loss of balance and fall.
People with sensory deficiency and/or integration systems, such as the elderly, patients with vestibular disorders, motion sickness, and concussed persons would benefit the most from an understanding of the risk and recovery. Her work strives to understand how one can compensate for the missing sensory information or erroneous inputs by introducing disturbances and measuring the outcomes of each sensory system under controlled conditions. Metrics obtained from these assessments can help establish a cut-off to determine at-risk populations allowing preventative rehabilitation interventions. She hopes that the results and methods developed will usher in a new protocol for evaluating and rehabilitating patients with multisensory integration issues.
Her interests include assistive technologies, diagnostic tools, and wearable devices. In addition to robotics, she is interested in modern art, dance, and theater