Natalia Dounskaia

Natalia Dounskaia is an associate professor of kinesiology in the College of Health Solutions. She obtained her doctorate in physics and mathematics in Moscow at the Institute of Control Science of the Russian Academy of Science. During her doctoral program, she studied methods of control of robotic arms. She later became interested in how the brain organizes control of human limb movements and was given the opportunity to study this question as a postdoctoral fellow first at the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium, and then at the Arizona State University.

Most recently, Dounskaia has been investigating how the central nervous system adjusts its descending signals to the biomechanical properties of the limbs. More specifically, her research has been focusing on five major topics: (1) general principles of control of multi-joint human movements, (2) control and organization of handwriting, (3) kinematic invariants in arm movements and their relation to the anatomical structure of the arm, (4) origins of submovements in aiming arm movements, (5) coordination of bimanual movements. In addition, She's applied her findings about control of normal movements to problems associated with adverse effect of normal aging and Parkinson’s disease. In correspondence with her research experience, her teaching interests include fundamental issues of motor control and their applications. 

Find out more about her work on the Leading Joint Hypothesis: Poetry in Motion (PDF).