Meghan Vidt

• Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation
• DE&I Committee Chair

• Dr. Meghan Vidt is an Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation at Penn State University and the Penn State College of Medicine. Her research focuses on musculoskeletal biomechanics of the shoulder and upper limb. This work includes a comprehensive assessment of upper limb mobility, functionality, and injury risk in the context of clinical populations, such as orthopaedic injury. This is accomplished through the application of experimental, computational, and medical imaging techniques. The ultimate goal of Dr. Vidt’s research is to identify the underlying mechanisms contributing to upper limb movement deficits, so that effective treatment and rehabilitation strategies can be developed to return patients to a pre-injury level of function. Dr. Vidt received her BS in Biomedical Engineering from North Carolina State University in 2006. She earned her PhD in Biomedical Engineering in 2014 from the Virginia Tech–Wake Forest School of Biomedical Engineering and Sciences. Her doctoral research focused on muscle structure and upper limb function in older adults with a rotator cuff tear. From 2014-2015, she was a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Kinesiology at the University of Waterloo. Her postdoctoral work included ergonomic assessments of upper limb and shoulder function. Dr. Vidt was an Assistant Professor in the School of Nutrition and Health Promotion at Arizona State University from 2015-2017. She joined Penn State University in August 2017, serving as an Assistant Professor in Biomedical Engineering and Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation from 2017 – 2024. She is a William and Wendy Korb Early Career Professor in Biomedical Engineering and serves as the Vice Chair of Research for the Department of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation. She is also an Associate Editor for Journal of Biomechanics and Journal of Applied Biomechanics, and serves as the Secretary for the Executive Board of the International Shoulder Group, a technical group of the International Society of Biomechanics.