Dr. Ducharme is an Assistant Professor of Motor Control & Learning in the Department of Kinesiology at Long Beach State University. His research interests are related to fall risk in older adults, and how physical activity impacts this risk. He studies postural and gait stability and adaptability, i.e., the ability to maintain upright postural orientation while navigating through various terrains that require constant adjustments to the way we coordinate movements.
Dr. Ducharme takes a Dynamical Systems’ approach to the study of motor behavior and human movement, and he incorporates both traditional and nonlinear analyses to quantify posture and gait metrics. Within this research line, he is also interested in how habitual physical activity (volume, intensity, modality) affects our ability to perform whole body movements, especially in older adulthood when various systems show signs of degradation. In his work, he also explores different ways to measure and analyze physical activity data derived from accelerometers, inertial measurement units (IMUs), and pedometers.
Dr. Ducharme has been collaborating with the Neurorehabilitation Lab at Teachers College since Fall 2025, particularly on several projects analyzing physical activity data in people with Parkinson's Disease.