Bio

Sport has always been a significant aspect of my life from synchronized swimming, to aquathlons, waterskiing, cross country running, and figure skating. When I started my undergraduate degree at the age of 14, I had already accumulated multiple acute and chronic injuries due to the wide range of sports I participated in. In the beginning of the training process of a group routine in synchronized swimming, swimmers often suffer from acute and chronic injuries due to an initial lack of coordination between teammates. It is due to swimming that I suffer from chronic shoulder subluxations. The role of coordination between people is incredibly important in all contact team sports as well as synchronized swimming, which is where a deep personal interest in my project stems from.

Research Project

My project follows a significant gap in sport injury research: motor coordination as a predictor of injury. IMUs (inertia measurement units) will be collecting acceleration, orientation, and gyroscope data from a number of contact sport volunteer athletes. This data will be processed using clustering algorithms to identify when coordinated plays occur between opponents and teammates, and this will be assessed alongside injury rates.

Supervisors: Prof. Jeroen Bergmann and Prof. Tim Denison