Rate My Professor Divya Srinivasan

Dr. Divya Srinivasan is the McQueen Quattlebaum Professor in the Department of Industrial Engineering at Clemson University, where she leads the ERGO Laboratory. She holds joint appointments in Industrial Engineering and Bioengineering. Srinivasan earned a Bachelor of Engineering in Electrical Engineering from Anna University, Chennai, India, in 2005, Master of Science degrees in Industrial and Operations Engineering and Biomedical Engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in 2008, and a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Michigan in 2010. Her research specializations encompass occupational biomechanics, human factors, physical ergonomics, movement control, human performance assessments, work physiology, and fatigue. Key research contributions examine the impacts of occupational exoskeletons on human gait, postural balance, muscle activity during repetitive lifting, trunk mechanical stiffness from prolonged sitting or standing, and postural balance effects from whole-body vibration exposure in mining operations.

Prior to joining Clemson in August 2021, Srinivasan served as Associate Professor from 2020 to 2021 and Assistant Professor from 2016 to 2020 in the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Virginia Tech. Earlier appointments include COFAS Marie Curie International Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Musculoskeletal Research, University of Gävle, Sweden, from 2012 to 2015; Research Fellow in Industrial and Operations Engineering at the University of Michigan from 2011 to 2012; and Graduate Student Research Assistant at the Center for Ergonomics, University of Michigan, from 2006 to 2010. In 2023, she received the HFE WOMAN Woman of the Year Award at the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society's 67th Annual Meeting, the McQueen Quattlebaum Faculty Achievement Award from Clemson's College of Engineering, Computing and Applied Sciences, and her team earned HFES Best Computational Paper and Best Student Paper awards, along with Presentation Competition and Design Competition awards at Exo Games 2023. Representative publications include "Human Gait During Level Walking With an Occupational Whole-Body Powered Exoskeleton: Not Yet a Walk in the Park" (IEEE Access, 2021, co-authored with S. Kim et al.); "Effects of two passive back-support exoskeletons on postural balance during quiet stance and functional limits of stability" (Journal of Electromyography and Kinesiology, 2021, co-authored with J.H. Park et al.); "The effects of prolonged sitting, standing, and an alternating sit-stand pattern on trunk mechanical stiffness, trunk muscle activation and low back discomfort" (Ergonomics, 2021); "Effects of two passive back-support exoskeletons on muscle activity, energy expenditure, and subjective assessments during repetitive lifting" (Human Factors, 2020, co-authored with M.M. Alemi et al.); and "Using gait variability to predict inter-individual differences in learning rate of a novel obstacle course" (Annals of Biomedical Engineering, 2019). Srinivasan is affiliated with the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers, and American Society of Biomechanics.