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Christian Puttlitz, PhD
Assistant Professor in Residence
Bio Mechanics
Christian Puttlitz was born in Lansing, Michigan and grew up in Wappingers Falls, New York. He returned to the Lansing area for his undergraduate study, graduating from Michigan State University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Material Science and Engineering in 1992. He went on to earn a Master of Science degree in Bioengineering at Clemson University. In 1994, Christian entered the doctoral program in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Iowa. His dissertation project, performed under the direction of Vijay Goel, involved generating a computer model of the upper cervical spine. Using this model, he was able to describe the mechanical implications of rheumatoid arthritis on spine function. He also published papers on loading that causes fractures in the second cervical vertebra and designed new hardware systems that promotes fusion across the head-neck junction. Christian received his PhD in 1999 and joined the University of California, San Francisco, (UCSF) Orthopaedic Bioengineering Laboratory, directed by Jeffrey Lotz, as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow.
After two years in the Lotz laboratory, Christian joined the Orthopaedic Surgery faculty as an Assistant Professor-In-Residence and Director of the Orthopaedic Bio Mechanical Lab at the San Francisco General Hospital, his current position. He also holds a concurrent appointment as a full member in the UCSF-UC Berkeley Bioengineering Graduate Group. His lab currently occupies approximately 1200 square feet and employs 10 research staff. The personnel involved with the lab include clinical faculty, postdoctoral research fellows, graduate students in Mechanical Engineering and Bioengineering, undergraduate engineering students, medical students, and residents. His work in orthopaedic bio mechanics has been presented at both national and international meetings and published in numerous peer-reviewed journals.
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