Notre Dame Research and Athletics have awarded three research teams the first-ever Human Performance & Wellness Research Grants. The grants will provide funding to support exceptional research projects that contribute meaningfully to fields related to the health, well-being, and performance of human subjects.

Jeffrey F. Rhoads, vice president for research and professor in the Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, said, “Notre Dame Research is proud of our research relationship with Notre Dame Athletics. Through this collaborative partnership, Notre Dame will officially connect the lab to the playing field for the first time ever. We are excited to witness the potential of what it means to marry Notre Dame’s research excellence with its long-standing preeminence in Athletics — all for the good of our collective well-being.”

“We congratulate the researchers and practitioners who, through these projects, will help athletes train effectively, cope with difficult conditions, and perform safely,” said John P. Wagle, the Pat & Jana Eilers Sr. Associate Athletics Director for Sports Performance. “We look forward not just to these results but also to our continued collaboration with Notre Dame Research and the role it will have in fostering high performance and overall well-being, both at Notre Dame and beyond.”

The 2025 awardees of the Human Performance & Wellness Research Grant are below.

Helping athletes return after ACL injuries

Edgar Bolívar-Nieto, assistant professor in the Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering and principal investigator at the Wearable Robotics Laboratory, will lead a project titled “Towards Functional Return-to-Sport Assessment after Anterior-Cruciate-Ligament Reconstruction: A Wearable Framework to Estimate Muscle Strength.” He will be joined by co-principal investigator Mandy Merritt, DPT, the senior associate athletic trainer and physical therapist for the Notre Dame Men’s Lacrosse Team.

Bolívar-Nieto and Merritt will work to develop an instrumented functional test to help determine when an athlete who has suffered an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury is ready to return to their sport. ACL injuries are common in young athletes. Although ACL surgeries can be effective, about 20% of athletes who experience a torn ACL reinjure the same or opposite knee. Better measures of an athlete's readiness to return will reduce the risk of repeated injury and ensure athletes are able to perform effectively and safely.

Reducing the “sports travel disadvantage”

Gerald Haeffel and Ivan Vargas will lead a project titled “The Sports Travel Disadvantage: Untangling the Effects of Circadian Rhythm Disruption and Sleep Loss on Athletic and Cognitive Performance.” Haeffel, an associate professor in the Department of Psychology, leads the Cognition & Emotion Lab, and Vargas, an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology, leads the Sleep and Health Research Lab. Haeffel and Vargas will be joined by co-principal investigators Matthew Robison, an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology, and Carlie McGregor, a staff psychologist in the University Counseling Center and Notre Dame Athletics.

The researchers will explore the “travel disadvantage” — the well-documented phenomenon that teams that travel across multiple time zones before a competition are about 20% less likely to win than teams that do not have to travel. This disadvantage holds true regardless of the direction the team travels or what sport the team plays. By exploring the underlying causes related to sleep and circadian rhythm, the researchers will identify the best ways to intervene and enable teams to compete at their best, even when traveling long distances.

Building stress-resilience in student-athletes

Zhi Zheng, an assistant professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering, will lead a project titled “Smart Textile Sensors for Mental Stress Sensing During Daily Activities.” She will work with Yiyu Shi, a professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, and Ying (“Alison”) Cheng, a professor in the Department of Psychology and Associate Director of the Lucy Family Institute for Data and Society.

Their project looks at mental stress, a significant challenge for college students as they encounter new academic responsibilities, unfamiliar social dynamics, and heightened expectations. The problem is especially difficult for college athletes, who face the additional pressure of athletic commitments. The research team will develop smart textile sensors to detect mental stress as students go about their daily activities. The textile sensors will detect electrodermal activity. Unlike existing sensors, they will be discreet, integrated into socks and other clothing, and they will use advanced AI computations modeling to overcome the signal challenges that arise due to movement. The researchers’ goal is to help students become more aware of stress, improve how they adapt to it, and ultimately support both their performance and mental health.

In addition to the outcomes within the award period, the grants will also serve as seed funding to generate preliminary results for larger, external grants.

To learn more about the ways Notre Dame Research is partnering with Notre Dame Athletics to provide new facilities, infrastructure, and funding to explore the science of elite performance, contact sportsperformance@nd.edu or athleticsresearch-list@nd.edu.

Contact: Brandi Wampler, associate director of media relations, 574-631-2632, brandiwampler@nd.edu

Originally published by Brett Beasley at research.nd.edu on April 22, 2025.