Robin Queen, professor of biomedical engineering and mechanics in the College of Engineering at Virginia Tech, has been named the L. Preston Wade Professor by the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors.

The L. Preston Wade Professorship in the College of Engineering was established by its namesake, a member of the Class of 1955, to recognize teaching and research excellence. Recipients hold professorship for a period of five years.

A member of the Virginia Tech faculty since 2015, Queen’s research has shaped the understanding of how joint implants alter the way patients completed everyday activities such as walking and climbing stairs and has changed our understanding of the benefits and limitations of orthopaedic surgical interventions. Queen’s recent work has focused on the development of novel interventions to allow young athletes to safely return to sport following anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction as well as developing assessment tools for use in clinical settings. These translational approaches have revealed truths about human joint biomechanics, injury patterns, and race and gender effects, particularly in limb biomechanics in sports injury and osteoarthritis.

In her career, Queen has written 147 peer-reviewed articles and three book chapters and has received approximately $9.4 million in external grant funding. She has advised 13 master’s  students, seven Ph.D. students, and seven Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine students since joining the Virginia Tech faculty. Currently, she directs the work of five Ph.D. and master’s students, four medical students, and one postdoctoral associate.

She has built bridges with clinical partners to aid in research translation. As part of her passion for advancing equity and inclusion in higher education, Queen has nurtured and formalized relationships with historically Black college and universities to expand pipelines that support underrepresented students and faculty. 

In 2022, Queen was elected fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, was elected fellow of the American Society of Biomechanics in 2021, received the Orthopaedic Research Society’s Adele L. Boskey Ph.D. Award in 2020, and received the American Society of Biomechanics' Jean Landa Pytel Award in 2023. At Virginia Tech, Queen held the Kevin P. Granata Faculty Fellowship from 2021-23.

Queen received her bachelor’s degree in applied science with a focus on biomaterials from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She also received her master’s degree and Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

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