Dr. Maher is an Associate Scientist, Associate Director of the Department of Biomechanics, and Co-Director of the Orthopaedic Soft Tissue Research Program Hospital for Special Surgery, New York. A mechanical engineer by training, her research is targeted at understanding how injury and repair affects knee joint mechanics.
Using in vitro, in vivo, and in silica models she has generated an abundance of data on the effects of ligament, cartilage, and meniscal injury, repair, and replacement on physiological joint mechanics. She has identified common loading patterns that articular cartilage is subjected to independent of knee-to-knee variability. More recently she has used her models for the pre-clinical assessment of candidate solutions for soft tissue repair.
Dr. Maher has an adjunct appointment in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Cornell University and is an Associate Professor of Biomechanics in Orthopaedic Surgery at Weill Cornell Medical College, and as such she helps supervise graduate students and facilitates cross-campus collaborations.