Brian Garner

Brian A. Garner received the B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in mechanical engineering from The University of Texas at Austin, in 1989, 1992, and 1998, respectively. During his Ph.D. pursuit and until 2001, he developed computer modeling software and served in technical roles for several private companies in Austin. He returned to The University of Texas at Austin, from 2001 to 2002, where he worked as a Faculty Lecturer with the Mechanical Engineering Department. He is currently an Associate Professor of mechanical engineering with Baylor University, where he has been working, since 2002. He is also an Inventor of MiraColt, a powered therapeutic mechanical device that simulates the motion experienced when riding on a horse, and he founded Chariot Innovations Inc., to bring the technology to market. His specific projects have included the study of human, horse, and camel gait motion characteristics, the study of on-body electromagnetic wave transmission characteristics, and computer modeling methods and algorithms to represent human arm biomechanics, to process and characterize periodic motion patterns, and to analyze anatomical features in medical images. He has served as a PI and a Co-PI for a variety of grant projects funded through state and local agencies, including NSF. One funded multi-disciplinary project studies the therapeutic effects in children with autism of a treatment program involving MiraColt. He holds multiple patents for the design of various exercise and therapy devices, and for computer algorithms. His research interests include mechanical system design with computer modeling and simulation toward applications in biomechanics.