Rory A. Cooper is the Founding Director and VA Senior Research Career Scientist of the Human Engineering Research Laboratories, a VA Rehabilitation R&D Center of Excellence in partnership with Pitt. Cooper has authored or co-authored over 300 peer-reviewed journal publications. He has 20 patents awarded or pending. Cooper is the author of two books: "Rehabilitation Engineering Applied to Mobility and Manipulation” and “Wheelchair Selection and Configuration”, and co-editor of “An Introduction to Rehabilitation Engineering”, “Warrior Transition Leader: Medical Rehabilitation Handbook”, and the award winning book “Care of the Combat Amputee”. Cooper is an elected Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, as well as RESNA, IEEE, AIMBE, and BMES.