Aimee Mullins: American athlete, actress, and fashion model best known for her extraordinary collegiate-level athletic accomplishments, despite a disability that resulted in the amputation of both of her legs

Aimee Mullins - (born 1976 in Allentown, Pennsylvania) is an American athlete, actress, and fashion model best known for her extraordinary collegiate-level athletic accomplishments, despite a disability that resulted in the amputation of both of her legs.She was born with fibular hemimelia (missing fibula bones) and had both of her legs amputated below the knee when she was just one year old. While attending Georgetown University she competed against able-bodied athletes in NCAA Division I track and field events and set Paralympic records in 1996 in Atlanta in the 100-meter dash and the long jump. She says she will have realised one of her ambitions when people describe her as "Aimee Mullins, the model", rather than "Aimee Mullins, the disabled model".


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Portraits In Posthumanity: Aimee Mullins

A one-time intelligence analyst with the Pentagon, Aimee  is an athlete, model, and activist. And she does it all using a collection of experimental prosthetic legs. She says her special "cheetah" legs give her superpowers.

On her website, Mullins gives a quick background on how she got where she is today:

Born without fibulae in both legs, Aimee's medical prognosis was bleak; she would never walk and indeed would spend the rest of her life using a wheelchair. In an attempt for an outside chance at independent mobility, doctors amputated both her legs below the knee on her first birthday. The decision paid off. By age two, she had learned to walk on prosthetic legs, and spent her childhood doing the usual athletic activities of her peers: swimming, biking, softball, soccer, and skiing, always alongside "able-bodied" kids.

When Mullins was in college at Georgetown:

She set her sights on making the US Team for the 1996 Atlanta Games. She enlisted the expertise of Frank Gagliano, one of the country's most respected track coaches. Through this partnership, she became the first woman with a "disability" to compete in the NCAA, doing so on Georgetown's nationally-ranked Division I track team. Outfitted with woven carbon-fiber prostheses that were modeled after the hind legs of a cheetah, she went on to set World Records in the 100 meter, the 200 meter, and the long jump, sparking a frenzy over the radical design of her prototype sprinting legs.

Several other athletes have used the legs developed for Mullins, and they have set a new standard for prosthetic legs that allow the wearer to participate in sports.

Here's an incredibly interesting video where Mullins talks about how her legs give her superpowers:

What makes Mullins posthuman is her attitude toward her prosthetics. She doesn't view them as "fixing" something, but rather as augmentations. She wants them to be beautiful, to give her superpowers, to be parts of her body that people look at with admiration. With her public speaking and athletics, Mullins has popularized the idea that synthetic body parts are something to show off, rather than hide.

Learn more about Mullins on her website. Below are some of Mullins' many sets of legs.