Dr Ben Oldfrey
Research Fellow
Themes: Assistive & Accessible Technology, Climate & Crisis Resilience
Pronouns: he/him/his
Ben Oldfrey is a research fellow on the AT2030 programme, working on models of AT provision for low resource settings globally.
He has a strong passion for making and materials of all kinds, with an interest in the real world demands of human-device interaction. His PhD combined the development of hyper-elastic nanocomposites with deep learning algorithms to produce soft skin-like sensors with application in smart prosthetic liners.
His research is currently centred on the opportunities for local systems strengthening and innovation to plug gaps in AT services, with resilience, distributed manufacture, repair and sustainability strategies being key topics of interest.
His work has been published in various journals, and in 2017, he was commissioned by BBC2's 'The Big Life Fix' to produce a pair of soft, voice controlled orthotic gloves that allowed grip control to a man who lacks motor function in his hands.
He also leads FCDO Covidaction Local Production Local Solutions, which among other activities, which has been supporting 9 innovators across 5 African countries and Nepal, who are producing critical products for their community in the face of global supply chain disruption. Details can be found here: https://medium.com/covidaction...
Google Scholar Profile: https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=zPPk3_UAAAAJ
