Donald Bartel
Emeritus Professor
Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Donald Bartel holds a joint appointment as a professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and as a senior scientist in the Department of Biomechanics at the Hospital for Special Surgery, the orthopedic affiliate of Cornell University's Weill Medical College. His work focuses on the mechanics of the human musculoskeletal system, with an emphasis on bone implants and joint replacements.
When natural joints become damaged from disease, trauma, or normal wear and tear, their surfaces may be replaced with prosthetic components. Dr. Bartel's research group analyzes these composite structures and develops design criteria for bone implant systems using numerical stress analysis and optimization techniques to study how the systems behave over time.
These studies also involve computer-aided design and manufacturing processes for creating and selecting custom prosthetic devices to be used by individual patients.
Dr. Bartel joined the Cornell faculty in 1969 and was a Guggenheim Fellow and visiting scientist in the Department of Orthopedics at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, in 1976-77. He was named director of the Program in Biomechanical Engineering at the Hospital for Special Surgery in 1977.
He has received several teaching and professional awards and is a fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineers.
