Keshner is one of a handful of scientists who pioneered the use of virtual reality - the technology of games and flight simulators - to study why we fall.
"I think her emphasis on having people navigate in a normal world situation is nearly unique," said Christopher Platt, balance and hearing program director for the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, which contributes part of the $300,000 that funds the lab's current research.
Balance is the result of complex interrelationships among eyes, ears, brain, and our awareness of other body parts. Lots of things can go wrong.
"The complaint that people often go to the hospital with is 'I'm dizzy,' " Platt said.
Just narrowing it down to the correct sensory system - or any system as opposed to, say, blood pressure - can be a challenge for doctors.
For researchers, studying one system historically has not illuminated how the body works as a whole. When the systems are examined in combination, however, isolating cause and effect can be hard. And painful for those being studied: People with balance disorders fall down.
Over the last decade, however, faster computers and sharper graphics have opened a whole new way to study balance - in a virtual environment.
"It has allowed us to look at a person as they would be in the real world," says Keshner, who brought the lab with her from Chicago when she became chair of the physical therapy department in Temple University's College of Health Professions two years ago. The first research subjects came through last fall.
