David A. Winter


David A. Winter is a distinguished professor emeritus of the University of Waterloo. He was a founding member of the Canadian Society for Biomechanics and its first Career Award winner. He was later awarded the Muybridge Medal of the International Society of Biomechanics and the Lifetime Achievement Award of The Gait and Clinical Movement Analysis Society. Before becoming an academic he served as an electrical officer with the Royal Canadian Navy on HMCS Nootka from 1952 to 1958. He completed his service at the rank of lieutenant commander. In December 2011, ISB named an award to encourage young people to stay involved in biomechanics research the "David Winter Young Investigator Award."
Winter is notable for introducing many important methods and concepts to the study of human locomotion and balance, such as automated television motion capture, lowpass digital filtering of marker trajectories, measurement of instantaneous segmental energy, and the powers produced by joint moments of force, and the analysis of electromyograms by ensemble averaging.

Education

Winter started his academic career in 1961 as an assistant professor in electrical engineering at the Royal Military College in Kingston, Ontario. He then took up a similar position at the Technical University of Nova Scotia where was eventually promoted to professor in 1969. In 1969, he became director of biomedical engineering at the Shriner's Hospital in Winnipeg with an associate professorship in surgery at the University of Manitoba and an adjunct professorship in electrical engineering. He was then hired as associate professor in the Department of Kinesiology at the University of Waterloo in 1974. He was promoted to professor in 1976, and when he retired in 1995 was given the title of distinguished professor emeritus.

Textbooks