Dr Lafortune is a world leading researcher in Biomechanics and has extensive experience in transferring his research into applied settings.  Dr Lafortune has been at the forefront of athletic footwear design for the majority of his career and it is on this basis we feel privileged Dr. Lafortune has agreed to be a Keynote speaker.  A brief overview of Dr Lafortune's career includes the following; received his PhD at Penn State University under Dr Peter Cavanagh; Senior Research Scientist at the Australian Institute of Sport from 1984-1989; Assistant Professor Human Biology, University of Guelph, Canada 1989-1996; Director of Nike Sport Research Laboratory, Nike, Oregon, USA from 1996-2011, presently Nike Director of Innovation for Golf.

Thor Besier is the Senior Research Fellow at the Auckland Bioengineering Institute.

Thor received a BPhEd with honours from the University of Otago, New Zealand, in 1995 and a PhD in Biomechanics from the University of Western Australia in 2000. He joined the Bioengineering Department at Stanford University in 2003 as a post-doctoral research fellow and became a faculty member in the Department of Orthopaedics at Stanford in 2006. For four years he established Stanford's Human Performance Laboratory as the Director of Research.

In February 2011, Thor returned to New Zealand where he joined the Auckland Bioengineering Institute as a Senior Research Fellow and Principal Investigator.

Thor’s research combines medical imaging with computational biomechanical simulation to understand mechanisms of musculoskeletal injury and disease. In particular, he is interested in the mechanical aetiology of patellofemoral pain, knee ligament injury, and knee osteoarthritis.

He has published more than 45 scientific articles on these topics and has received awards including the IOC Prince de Merode award for excellence in physical science, the International Society of Biomechanics in Sports Young Investigator award, and Sports Medicine Australia Young Investigator Award.