Students from Bridgeport's Central High School worked in the lab of John Drazen, PhD, evaluating the elite sports performance of some of their favorite athletes.
In the summer of 2023, John Drazen, PhD, assistant professor of biomedical engineering, began an exciting collaboration between the School of Engineering and Computing and alumnus William King MA’15, a teacher and coach at Central High School in Bridgeport, Connecticut.
The partnership started with a week-long summer research program at Dr. Drazen's lab, which welcomed King and 12 of his student-athletes to the North Benson campus. Reflecting on the success of the initiative, Dr. Drazan noted, “The students loved it and a subset of them continued working with me throughout the [2023-24] school year.”
Building on that success, King returned to the lab this past summer with four Central High School rising seniors who worked as paid research assistants and also prepared and delivered a one-week summer research experience for 15 Central underclassmen. Acting as mentors, each of the seniors led a research group "that identified an elite athlete and spent the week performing sports science research to understand elite sports performance,” said Dr. Drazan.
In their research, the Central students were guided by Fairfield undergraduates as they used loadsol technology — a thin sensor insole that measures the force between a foot and a shoe — to collect data on Achilles tendon loading during recreational basketball activities. They then processed this data with Microsoft Excel and MATLAB’s coding software, culminating their work in a research poster that was presented alongside Fairfield’s undergraduate researchers at a Summer Research Symposium.
The impact of the program was felt deeply by both the high school and the college students. The younger students got a taste of the collaborative academic environment at Fairfield and, as undergraduate Matthew Manduca '25 observed, the experience gave those already interested in engineering a chance to apply their passion, while others less inclined toward engineering found value in connecting their interest in sports with scientific research.
On a personal level, Manduca noted that the project reshaped his perspective on engineering outreach and deepened his appreciation for the opportunity to share his passion for engineering with others.
Learn more about the School of Engineering and Computing at fairfield.edu/engineering.
