Andrew Rapoff

Research interests

Physical Anthropology, Biomimetic Structures, Bone Mechanics, Orthopedic Devices and Aircraft Structural

My research efforts over the years have been in the areas of physical anthropology, biomimetic structures, bone mechanics, orthopedic mechanics, spine mechanics, veterinary orthopedics and aircraft structural analysis.

I have focused recently on work with my physical anthropologist colleagues David Daegling at the University of Florida and Scott McGraw at the Ohio State University. Our work has resulted in publications that have accomplished, for example, the following:

• determined that the shape of canines in Old World monkeys predispose them to resist a variety of loads that reflect their behavior,

• determined that a natural groove in Old World monkey canines is more pronounced in species that aggressively use their canines and postulated that this groove may serve to mitigate the deleterious effect of twisting on the canines in addition to other loads placed upon them,

• determined that the curvature on the posterior aspect of Old World monkey canines is “masculinized” in females who aggressively use their canines so as to mitigate the deleterious effect of curvature on canine stresses when loaded in vivo

• developed image-based, computational measures of resistance to bending and twisting provided by the mandible that incorporates bone density from radiographic images