Athlete Engineering
With the rise of wearable technology, the sports industry has begun introducing data scientists into teams'
organizational environments, who influence the training, performance, and recovery programs of athletes.
To meet the growing demand for these specialized professionals, Mississippi State University has responded
by investing in athlete engineering, a multidisciplinary research collaboration between the university's
academic and athletic departments to explore human performance, processes, and analysis.
Funding and mentorship are provided by MSU's Center for Advanced Vehicular Systems (CAVS), Bagley College
of Engineering (BCoE), and National Strategic Planning and Analysis Research Center (NSPARC).
The mission of athlete engineering is to align researchers from all engineering disciplines, as well as
kinesiology, sociology, and psychology researchers, with athletic practitioners such as strength and
conditioning coaches, athletic trainers, and nutritionists, to enhance student-athlete safety and link
human factors to performance technology.
With the knowledge that athletic ability plays into a variety of fields outside of sports, MSU's research divides these areas into four distinct Human Athlete Personas:
Some of the primary research areas for this team include:
- Sensor and wearable technology design and validation
- Technology assessment of gait and jumping mechanics
- Unique methods for measuring ground reaction forces and pressures
- Methodology development and testing of wearables and other human performance related solutions
- Analysis algorithm, neural networks, and clustering technique development
- Rehabilitation and pre-rehabilitation assessments through existing and development technologies
- Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and Smart PPE design and implementation
