Rita Patterson, PhD
Rita Patterson, PhD, serves as the Associate Dean of Research for the Texas College
of Oste
opathic Medicine at UNT Health. Dr. Patterson is a biomedical engineer with a career-long
focus on applying engineering principles to solve medical problems in clinical settings.
Her work bridges technical and clinical domains, enabling effective translation between
engineering design and patient care. Her research centers on orthopaedics, human performance,
and rehabilitation, with a strong emphasis on biomechanics and data analytics.
For 20 years at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, she has collaborated closely with a hand surgeon in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery and Rehabilitation. Together, they investigated the anatomy, biomechanics, and kinematics of the carpal bones and upper extremity, producing widely cited research that impacted surgical practice and patient outcomes. In recognition of this work, she was awarded the 2019 ASME Savio L-Y Woo Translational Biomechanics Medal for influential research that led to improvements in the treatment of hand and wrist disorders and for my mentorship of future engineers and clinicians.
Since joining UNT Health, she has continued her interdisciplinary collaborations, supporting research by physicians, residents, and medical students. As an adjunct professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of North Texas, she fosters cross-disciplinary learning by pairing engineering and medical students to work together on translational projects at the interface of clinical need and technical innovation.
In recent years, she has expanded her research to include data collection and analysis related to balance and fall risk in older adults. Recognizing a gap in routine balance assessments during the COVID-19 pandemic, she initiated a pilot program to collect postural stability data in our university clinics. This work received funding through the A2 Consortium and is now focused on older adults at risk of cognitive and physical decline. Her work builds on this foundation by extending balance and performance assessments to identify early cognitive decline using static and dynamic physical balance measures.