International Congress of Snow Sports Trauma and Safety
The ISEA student engagement award enabled me to attend and present at the 23rd International Congress on Snow Sports Trauma and Safety (ISSS) in Squaw Valley, California on 7-13th April 2019. The funds contributed towards travel, accommodation and conference fees.
The conference consisted of a week of talks and discussions from experts in the area of snow sports safety from all over the world, including physicians, orthopaedic surgeons, biomechanics, engineers, epidemiologists, ski patrollers and snow sports manufacturers. This was my first international conference where I had the opportunity to present my work titled ‘Development of a Tissue Simulant to Improve Assessment of Snowboarding Wrist Protectors’. As I am only at the beginning of the second year of my PhD, I delivered my work so far, enabling me to gain valuable feedback from experts in the area, as well as discuss ideas and suggestions of further work, helping me progress with my PhD. It was a great opportunity to discover the different research currently being conducted within snow sports safety, as well as network with researchers who have previously been involved in the work on snowboarding wrist protection.
I look forward to attending a future conference once I am towards the end of my PhD and will be able to deliver some key and final findings; developing a full wrist surrogate, and contributing to knowledge of the protective capabilities of snowboarding wrist protectors.
I am very grateful to the ISEA for helping me fund this trip to my first international conference, it has been a very valuable experience.