Max Shepherd
Assistant Professor,
Physical Therapy, Movement and Rehabilitation Sciences
Assistant Professor,
Mechanical and Industrial Engineering
Contact
- m.shepherd@northeastern.edu
- 360 Huntington Ave
Boston, MA 02115
Research Focus
Wearable robotics and machine learning for personalized gait rehabilitation systems
About
Dr. Shepherd is an Assistant Professor with a joint appointment in Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, and Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation. Prior to coming to Northeastern, Dr. Shepherd did his PhD in Biomedical Engineering at Northwestern University while performing his research at the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab, and was a Postdoctoral researcher at Georgia Tech. He has previously worked at X (formerly Google X) and was a visiting scholar at Ossur, an Icelandic prosthetics manufacturer. Dr. Shepherd’s research seeks to improve the individualized design and control of robotic prosthetics and exoskeletons for people with mobility impairments. His research spans gait biomechanics, machine learning, robotics, mechatronic design, and human motor control and perception.
Education
- PhD, Biomedical Engineering, Northwestern University, 2019
- MS, Biomedical Engineering, Northwestern University, 2017
Professional Affiliations
- American Society of Biomechanics
- IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society
- IEEE Robotics and Automation Society
Research Overview
Wearable robotics and machine learning for personalized gait rehabilitation systems
Selected Research Projects
- Towards Task-Agnostic and Device-Agnostic Ankle Exoskeleton Control for Mobility Enhancement
- – Principal Investigator, NSF
- A new clinical device to enable informed prosthesis prescription decision-making.
- National Institutes of Health NIBIB / R21Trailblazer, Principal Investigator
- Advancing Overload Prediction and Protection in Bone-Anchored Limbs
- CDMRP Peer-Reviewed Orthopaedic Research Program, Principal Investigator
Department Research Areas
Selected Publications
- D. Molinaro, K. Scherpereel, E. Schonhaut, G. Evangelopoulos, M. Shepherd, A. Young, “Task-agnostic exoskeleton control via biological joint moment estimation,” Nature, 2024
- O. Beck*, M. Shepherd*, R. Rastogi, G. Martino, L. Ting, and G. Sawicki. “Exoskeletons need to react faster than physiological responses to improve standing balance.” Science Robotics, 2023
- P. Shetty, J. Menezes, S. Song, A. Young, M. Shepherd, “Ankle Exoskeleton Control via Data-Driven Gait Estimation for Walking, Running, and Inclines.” IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, 2025.
- H. Bartlett, B. Moores, B. Lawson, M. Shepherd, “The Footropter: A Passive Prosthetic Prescription Tool with Adjustable Forefoot and Hindfoot Stiffness.” IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering, 2025.
- M. Shepherd and E. Rouse. “The VSPA Foot: A Quasi-Passive Ankle-Foot Prosthesis with Continuously Variable Stiffness,” IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering, 2017.
Oct 31, 2025
Making Exoskeletons Safe Through Uncertainty
Research conducted by Fatima Mumtaza Tourk, PhD’27, mechanical engineering; Bishoy Galoaa, PhD’29, computer engineering; Sanat Shajan, COS’25; ECE/Khoury Assistant Professor Michael Everett; and Bouvé/MIE Assistant Professor Max Shepherd on “Uncertainty-Aware Ankle Exoskeleton Control” was published in Robotics.
Feb 12, 2025
Adaptive Prosthetic Ankle for Amputees
Bouvé/MIE Assistant Professor Max Shepherd is developing a Variable-Stiffness Ankle (VSA) prosthetic to address the limitations of current fixed-stiffness prosthetics by dynamically adapting to users’ movements for enhanced comfort and mobility.
Jan 30, 2025
Fall 2024 Spark Fund Awardees
BioE Assistant Professor Sara Rouhanifard, Bouve/MIE Assistant Professor Max Shepherd, and MIE Assistant Professor Jeffrey Lipton are recipients of the Fall 2024 Spark Fund Awards from Northeastern’s Center for Research Innovation.
Nov 27, 2024
Using Exoskeletons To Increase Mobility
Bouvé/MIE Assistant Professor Max Shepherd is leading a team of graduate students, including Fatima Tourk, PhD’27, mechanical engineering, to create a battery-powered exoskeleton that is intended to assist people with mobility issues and enable complex movements without causing discomfort. He co-authored research published in Nature on a new lower-limb exoskeleton.
Sep 14, 2023
Designing Exoskeletons to be More Versatile and Accessible
Bouve/MIE Assistant Professor Max Shepherd, in collaboration with Aaron Young from Georgia Tech, was awarded a $800,000 NSF grant for “Towards Task-Agnostic and Device-Agnostic Ankle Exoskeleton Control for Mobility Enhancement.”
Mar 02, 2023
Shepherd’s Research Featured on Cover of Science Robotics
Bouve/MIE Assistant Professor Max Shepherd’s research on “Exoskeletons Need To React Faster than Physiological Responses To Improve Standing Balance” was featured on the cover of Science Robotics.
Jan 03, 2022
New Faculty Spotlight: Max Shepherd
Max Shepherd joins the Mechanical and Industrial Engineering department in January 2022 as an Assistant Professor with a joint appointment in Physical Therapy, Movement and Rehabilitation Sciences.