Ron Zernicke, PhD, DSc, Co-Director of the Human Performance & Sport Science Center (HPSSC) was recently awarded the James Hay Memorial Award on August 9, 2024 by the American Society of Biomechanics 2024. The James Hay Memorial Award recognizes originality, quality, and depth of biomechanics research that addresses fundamental research questions relevant to the extraordinary demands imposed in sport and exercise.
As awardee, Dr. Zernicke prepared a symposium, titled Biomechanics of Exercise and Sport, with a self-presentation of his vast research and work along with invited guest speakers with their individual presentations. Human performance, exercise, and sport represented key elements in each of these symposium presentations, which highlighted structure-function data derived from musculoskeletal tissues (e.g., bone, muscle, tendon, ligament, and joint cartilage) ranging from infants and children to the elderly and from individuals with disabilities (e.g., congenital lower-extremity child amputees), to elite athletes (e.g., professional baseball and basketball players, Olympic/Paralympic athletes, and university student-athletes), to individuals with musculoskeletal injury (e.g., anterior cruciate ligament or patellar tendon rupture or bone stress fracture) or disease (e.g., joint osteoarthritis).
These biomechanical research foci were presented in the context of in-lab as well as real-world data collection and emphasized the rapidly evolving technologies that allow human performance data to be collected at-scale and during actual competitions and real-world movement situations. Speakers emphasized how biomechanics research will continue to evolve in ecologically valid and at-scale environments, and further expand to integrate and synthesize numerous disciplines, such as computer engineering, data science, artificial intelligence, advanced analytics, and wearable technologies. As the future unfolds for the field of biomechanics, greater and greater emphases will be placed on prioritizing large-scale uniform data collection and cataloging standards to help future generations solve problems and enhance human health and well-being.
The speakers and their talk titles are as follows:
Ron Zernicke, PhD, DSc, Professor, Dept. Orthopaedic Surgery, Kinesiology, and Biomedical Engineering,Co-Director, Human Performance & Sport Science Center,University of Michigan, Talk title: Biomechanics of Exercise and Sport: Human Performance, Musculoskeletal Adaptation, and Injury
Jocelyn Hafer, PhD, Assistant Professor, Dept. Kinesiology and Applied Physiology, University of Delaware, Former Postdoctoral Researcher, HPSSC Michigan Performance Research Lab, Talk title: Capturing Real-World Movement to Inform Biomechanical Processes
David Whiteside, PhD, Director, Performance Science,New York Yankees, Former Postdoctoral Researcher, HPSSC Michigan Performance Research Lab, Talk title: Research Directions in the Age of A.I.
Ken Kozloff, PhD, Steven A. Goldstein, PhD, Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery, Depts. Orthopaedic Surgery, Kinesiology, and Biomedical Engineering, Co-Director, Human Performance & Sport Science Center, University of Michigan, Talk title: Synthesizing Signals Across the Athlete: Where do we go from here?