Noor Tasnim

About Noor

Noor is a PhD Student in the Graduate Program in Translational Biology, Medicine, and Health at Virginia Tech. He graduated from Duke University in 2018 with dual-honors in Evolutionary Anthropology and Global Health. At Duke, he was a visual arts instructor for Arts for Life North Carolina and member of a hip-hop inspired collegiate dance team. His involvement in dance helped shape an interest in barefoot locomotion and lower limb injuries. In 2017, he examined differences in foot shape between men and women in Mandena, Madagascar and showed that orthopedic problems, already well documented in the West, were a global phenomenon reaching even remote agrarian communities. Although his Luce Year took place during the COVID-19 pandemic (2020-2021), he was able to research human biomechanics at Ewha Womans University (South Korea) and The University of Tokyo (Japan). He also spent this time training in various styles of dance, specializing in Popping and Animation, at NOA Dance Academy (Tokyo) and Just Jerk Dance Academy (Seoul). As a current member of the Embodied Brain Lab at Virginia Tech, he connects his passion for dance with his research interests in human biomechanics and neurophysiology to study how dance could improve socio-emotional and musculoskeletal health.