Aditi Bhattamishra ’28 has received the Genspiration University Inventors Prize from the National Academy of Inventors (NAI) for her invention of a prosthetic ankle.
Aditi Bhattamishra
Bhattamishra, who is pursuing a double major in robotics engineering and mechanical engineering, was honored in June during NAI’s annual conference. The Genspiration Prize recognizes excellence in innovation, and the winner in the university category receives $5,000 to fund further development of an innovation.
“I was very honored to receive the university-level Genspiration prize,” says Bhattamishra, who is from Orange, Conn. “To me, it signifies the faith people have in my abilities and my ideas and that others are as excited about my work as I am.”
Bhattamishra began developing her invention as a high school freshman. She worked on it for two years, consulting with Elliott Rouse, an associate professor in mechanical engineering and robotics at the University of Michigan, whose published research informed her understanding of the problem that needed to be addressed. Her prosthetic ankle uses a novel actuator, which is a device that converts energy to mechanical motion, to provide smart, precise, and power-efficient joint control. Bhattamishra continues working on the device while attending WPI and is seeking to patent her technology.
“I want to tackle problems of accessibility by targeting the high costs and less-than-ideal power efficiency of most modern powered prosthetics,” she says. “I became interested in this subject during middle school, while watching Voltron, an animated science fiction television series. The series made me think about the huge gap between the technology we have and what we need.”
NAI is an organization of more than 4,600 members and is affiliated with U.S. and international universities, governmental agencies, and nonprofit research institutes.
