{"106981":{"#nid":"106981","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Researcher Vying for Spot in 2012 Paralympics","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EShe\u2019s logged the requisite four to six training hours a day, competed in World Championship events, won gold medals and earned a spot on the USA Paralympic Team in two sports. The only thing Cassie Mitchell needs now is the thumbs up that she\u2019ll be competing in the London 2012 games.\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp; \u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cYou\u2019re doing all of this preparation, and there\u2019s no guarantee that you\u2019ll be selected,\u201d said Mitchell, who is a faculty researcher in the Department of Biomedical Engineering. \u201cBut my competitive juices are flowing, and I\u2019m determined to make this happen.\u201d \u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EFor almost two years, Mitchell has competed in handcycling, bringing home two gold medals from the 2011 Union Cycliste International Para-cycling World Championships. She also became the first female quadriplegic handcyclist to win a World Championship. \u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn addition to handcycling, Mitchell recently took on a \u201cback-up event\u201d \u2014 to help solidify her chances of competing in London \u2014 and has excelled at wheelchair track racing. \u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cIt can be really challenging to try and train for such different events,\u201d she said. \u201cHandcycling events are 10 to 30 miles, while the track racing is more like 100 to 200 meters. So, I\u2019m having to do endurance training and speed training at the same time.\u201d \u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMitchell has been a competitive athlete for most of her life, winning world western equestrian team events as a teenager and later accepting a collegiate track and field scholarship. But before she headed off to college, she developed Devics Neuromyelitis Optica, which severely damaged her spinal cord and left her paralyzed.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cI initially chose to get involved with handcycling because I wanted to get in shape,\u201d she said. \u201cBut then, I went to a couple of races, and a friend encouraged me to go after my life-long Olympic dream \u2014 I was convinced.\u201d \u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn June, Mitchell will find out if she has been selected to compete in either event. Until then, she\u2019s sticking with her favorite mantra, printed on a sign in her office: \u201cNever, never, never give up.\u201d \u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ERead on to learn more about Mitchell and her time at Tech.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EWhat did you want to be when you were a child?\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EI\u2019d always wanted to be an orthopedic surgeon and had a scholarship to study medicine when I was paralyzed. I knew that being a surgeon would be difficult given my physical limitations, so I decided to consider something else. I\u2019d taken an aptitude exam and tested high for engineering, so I went with chemical engineering. After some job experience as an oil reservoir engineer, I realized that I still wanted to do something related to medicine and that pushed me to graduate school and biomedical engineering.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EHow did you arrive at Georgia Tech?\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp; \u0026nbsp;\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EI earned my PhD from the Department of Biomedical Engineering in 2009. But, I didn\u2019t want to leave the research that I\u2019d begun. I started as research faculty at Tech in 2011. \u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ETell us about your research.\u0026nbsp; \u0026nbsp;\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWhat I do is a lot like weather forecasting for neurological diseases and injuries. I try to predict how they operate as well as how they respond to intervention. Ultimately, the computer models I develop forecast the most promising treatments and the likelihood of favorable outcomes. Currently, I am in hot pursuit of causes and treatments for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS, or Lou Gehrig\u2019s Disease).\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EWhat is something you\u2019ve learned from the students you work with?\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp; \u0026nbsp;\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EI realize that you don\u2019t have to know all of the details of your field to make key contributions. The 12 undergraduates that I mentor have a naivet\u00e9 about them that allows them to ask questions that more seasoned researchers don\u2019t feel comfortable asking. Sometimes, their questions can lead to great discoveries.\u0026nbsp; \u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EWhat piece of technology could you not live without?\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMy laptop is like the left hemisphere of my brain. \u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EWhich do you prefer and why: Facebook, Twitter or a world without all of this social media stuff?\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EI\u2019m not on Facebook or Twitter and previously haven\u2019t really seen the value in either. However, my involvement in these elite sports is forcing me to reevaluate my stance on this, because I want people to be part of the Olympic dream and adventure. \u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EIf you were stranded on a deserted island, what is one book you would want? \u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMy Bible.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EWhere is your favorite place to eat lunch, and what do you order?\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMoe\u2019s, and I get a cheese quesadilla.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EShe\u2019s logged the requisite four to six training hours a day, competed in World Championship events, won gold medals and earned a spot on the USA Paralympic Team in two sports. The only thing Cassie Mitchell needs now is the thumbs up that she\u2019ll be competing in the London 2012 games.\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp; \u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"She\u2019s logged the requisite four to six training hours a day, competed in World Championship events, won gold medals and earned a spot on the USA Paralympic Team in two sports."}],"uid":"27445","created_gmt":"2012-02-06 16:07:43","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:11:40","author":"Amelia Pavlik","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2012-02-06T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2012-02-06T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"106961":{"id":"106961","type":"image","title":"Cassie Mitchell","body":null,"created":"1449178188","gmt_created":"2015-12-03 21:29:48","changed":"1475894725","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:45:25","alt":"Cassie Mitchell","file":{"fid":"193989","name":"cassie.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/cassie_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/cassie_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":1703255,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/cassie_0.jpg?itok=A_pyguyP"}}},"media_ids":["106961"],"groups":[{"id":"1259","name":"Whistle"}],"categories":[{"id":"129","name":"Institute and Campus"}],"keywords":[{"id":"23101","name":"cassie mitchell"},{"id":"11533","name":"Department of Biomedical Engineering"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:amelia.pavlik@comm.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EAmelia Pavlik\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ECommunications \u0026amp; Marketing\u003Cbr \/\u003E4040-385-4142\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}