EHS on Tap E281: Reducing Workplace Injuries with Exoskeletons
10 snips
Feb 3, 2026 Dr. Karl Zelik, co-founder and CSO of HeroWear and a Vanderbilt engineering professor focusing on wearable assistive tech. He discusses a longitudinal study on workplace exoskeletons. Short sentences cover injury reductions, surprises about risk shifting, how evidence eases adoption, current scale of use, and practical evolution toward task-specific exosuits.
AI Snips
Chapters
Transcript
Episode notes
Personal Origin Story
- Karl Zelik describes becoming a parent and developing back pain which led him to pursue practical exosuits.
- That personal experience sparked HeroWear and shifted his research from prosthetics to occupational wearables.
Science Meets Industry Need
- HeroWear combined scientific responsibility with industry demand to run a long-term study.
- They used real-world deployments to answer long-term injury and risk-shifting questions.
Large Real-World Impact
- The longitudinal study covered five distribution centers and over 300,000 work hours for 8–23 months.
- It found a 62% reduction in total strain and sprain injuries among workers wearing the Apex exosuit.