student and lead author Alivia Uribe ’25, Sport Analytics Professor  and Sport Analytics Associate Professor teamed with University of Reading (U.K.) Professor James Reade and University of Stirling (Scotland) senior lecturer Carl Singleton to write “Do Behavioral Considerations Cloud Penalty-Kick Location Optimization in Professional Soccer: Game Theory and Empirical Testing using Polynomial Regression and ML Gradient Boosting.”

Their research was named best in field at the prestigious , held March 7-8 at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston, Massachusetts.

The Sloan Sports Analytics Conference showcases cutting-edge research that’s featured in top media outlets throughout the world and has changed the way sports are analyzed. This year’s competition featured six sports tracks: basketball, baseball, soccer, football, business of sports and other sports. Abstracts were selected based on the novelty, academic rigor and impact of the research.

The team that won the Research Paper Competition at the prestigious MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference included, from left to right, Shane Sanders, James Reade, Alivia Uribe, and Justin Ehrlich.

Ehrlich explained that the group submitted an abstract in the fall. Out of thousands of submissions, the most promising were invited to submit full papers. These manuscripts were then evaluated, and the authors of the top seven papers were invited to present orally at the conference in Boston earlier this month. A panel of industry experts judged these presentations, and the winner was announced during an awards ceremony at the conclusion of the conference.

“I am incredibly proud of our team’s work as it resulted in a fantastic project that resonates deeply with others,” Ehrlich says. “Although aiming for riskier, higher areas of the goal can yield greater expected conversion rates, players typically avoid these zones due to the increased risk of missing entirely, which carries negative perceptions. Our findings generated enthusiasm among many attendees and received considerable attention at the conference.”

Uribe, a forward on the , is the first female lead author to be on the Research Paper Competition-winning team in MIT Sloan’s 19-year history, according to the event organizers.

“This is something I’m extremely proud of,” says Uribe, a sport analytics minor. “I could not be more grateful for the professors who have helped me create this opportunity. The knowledge and expertise I bring into it as a student-athlete is something very unique.”

Sanders and Ehrlich built on their previous analytics research to assist Uribe with her research, while Reade and Singleton provided invaluable soccer data. This was the second consecutive year that Sanders and Ehrlich had a research paper selected among the top seven at MIT Sloan. Last year, they presented their study on the NBA that shows the average expected value of 3-point shots has become less than 2-pointers since the 2017-18 season.

“Falk College is an ideal place to work and teach, the best college I’ve ever been affiliated with by far,” Sanders says. “The administrators, faculty, and students really pull together here like nowhere else I’ve been. Moreover, our leadership team has positioned sport analytics to shine as a program.”

Read the team’s full research paper on the MIT Sloan .

In the United States, unemployment rates skyrocketed, housing prices and stock portfolios plummeted, and the lives of millions were disrupted. More than 30 million individuals lost their jobs, and the rate of long-term unemployment doubled its historical high.

This past summer, , an assistant professor in the in the , received a (NIH) grant to conduct a two-year study on the effect of the Great Recession on older adults.

Specifically, the project aims to assess the combined impact of pre-recession and Great Recession precarity (uncertainty/insecurity) on employment and working conditions for older workers. In addition, the study is investigating how these economic factors–together with psychosocial working conditions–have differently influenced health biomarker trajectories and mortality outcomes by race, potentially shedding light on the disproportionately adverse outcomes observed among Black adults post-recession.

Miriam Mutambudzi

This study builds on Mutambudzi’s established research program, which views work as an important structural determinant of health. She will publish the findings of this NIH-funded study, and examples of her past publications can be found on her .

The impact of Mutambudzi’s research on the social determinants of health is felt throughout the campus as she is a Faculty Affiliate of the , the , and the in the .

This past fall, Mutambudzi was selected as the 2024-26  Faculty Fellow. In that role, Mutambudzi and Lender Student Fellows are exploring how Black adults who reside in historically redlined neighborhoods can experience a disadvantaged occupational life course and subsequent health consequences.

We reached out to Mutambudzi to learn more about her current research project.

Why is this research important to you?

This area of research highlights how structural inequities, particularly in the labor market, perpetuate health disparities. By examining the cumulative impact of work-related disadvantages, i.e., precarity and poor working conditions, I aim to show the pathways through which these factors exacerbate racial and gender-based health inequities among older adults.

Understanding these mechanisms aligns with my broader commitment to addressing health inequities as structural issues rooted in systemic injustice.

What is the scope of your current study and how are you collecting your data?

The study focuses on older adults aged 50 and above. Data are drawn from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) from 2006-2020, supplemented with HRS-linked Occupational Information Network Data (O*NET).

What are you looking for when you examine this data?

I am looking to better understand how pre-recession and Great Recession precarity independently and cumulatively affect health biomarker trajectories such as hbA1c, cholesterol, C-reactive protein and systolic blood pressure, as well as all-cause mortality. I am particularly interested in identifying racial and gender disparities in these effects and understanding how job strain and cumulative precarity interact to influence health outcomes.

How can your findings be used to help mitigate the impact of economic factors on older and Black adults?

The findings can be leveraged to inform policy interventions that address the structural barriers that perpetuate health disparities among older vulnerable populations. For example, policies aimed at improving working conditions and strengthening social safety nets during economic downturns.

How does this research tie in with your role as the Lender Center for Social Justice Faculty Fellow and your project with Student Fellows?

Both projects underscore the long-term health consequences of structural racism and economic marginalization. Insights from this R03 can improve our understanding of how occupational inequities compound the challenges faced by residents of historically redlined neighborhoods (a R03 grant is an NIH-funded program that supports smaller-scale research projects over a two-year period).

Department of Exercise Science Assistant Professor Kylie Harmon (right) and exercise science student Rylie DiMaio review a sonogram of DiMaio’s leg muscles to provide a baseline for Harmon’s research on preserving muscle strength during immobilization.

Mind over matter.

, an assistant professor in the in the Falk College of Sport and Human Dynamics, has always been fascinated by this deep-rooted idea that a person could control a physical condition with their mind.

More specifically, she wondered if a person could use their mind to preserve muscle mass and strength during a prolonged period of immobilization. For Harmon, turning this idea into actual research was sparked by where researchers used neuromuscular electrical stimulation on muscles immobilized in a cast to preserve leg strength and mass. Surprisingly, mass was preserved, but strength was not.

Harmon’s research found that given the role of the nervous system in immobilization-induced weakness, targeted interventions may be able to preserve muscle strength but not mass, and vice versa. Though preliminary, her findings highlight the specific nature of clinical interventions and suggest that muscle strength can be independently targeted during rehabilitation.

Harmon’s innovative research, which was conducted over several months and with nearly 40 participants, was by the peer-reviewed scientific journal Experimental Physiology.

We sat down with Harmon to learn more about her research, most surprising findings, and next steps. Here’s that discussion:

Kylie Harmon

Q: What did you learn from the previous research on this topic, and how did that frame what you wanted to accomplish with your research?

A: Those researchers saw that daily muscle stimulation helped to maintain muscle size, but didn’t impact muscle strength. In much of my work, I was using interventions that improved muscle strength but had no impact on muscle size. I had some experience with action observation and mental imagery, which are neural intervention techniques in which a person observes muscular contractions or thinks about performing muscular contractions without actually doing so. These have been shown to be effective for strength gain or preservation, as they activate the neuromuscular pathways responsible for strength production. However, they don’t impact muscle size.

So, I thought it would be interesting to directly compare these two interventions–neuromuscular electrical stimulation versus action observation + mental imagery–to see if previous findings held up. We decided to design a lower-limb immobilization study with one group performing daily action observation + mental imagery to preserve strength, and another group performing daily electrical stimulation to preserve muscle size. The goals were twofold: 1) To further demonstrate that strength and size are distinct qualities and need to be addressed with specific interventions and 2) To hopefully improve rehabilitation outcomes by preserving size and strength during immobilization.

Q: Once you established your goals, how did you determine your research methods?

A: It took several months and a lot of teamwork to determine our methods. I relied heavily on existing literature to determine how to best implement lower-limb immobilization, what leg braces to use, what joint angle to immobilize at, and how long immobilization was needed before we would observe decreases in strength and size. I reached out to authors of my favorite papers to ask them about their methodologies, such as how to design an appropriate action observation + mental imagery intervention and what stimulation devices to buy.

Once I had a good idea of the game plan, I presented the idea to my mentors and collaborators to get their feedback. Finally, we developed a sizable research team to help with the project: three Ph.D. students, three M.S. students, four physical therapy students, and five undergraduate students. It was very much a team effort!

As demonstrated by exercise science student Lydia Van Boxtel, the subjects in Kylie Harmon’s study need to learn how to use crutches after being fitted with the leg brace.

Q: Can you describe the process of gathering your data?

A: We screened 117 interested people, and when all was said and done, we had 39 individuals fully participate in the study. Prior to the immobilization week, we tested muscle strength, muscle size and the ability of their brain to activate their muscles. We then had physical therapy students fit participants with a leg brace and crutches and show them how to navigate a variety of obstacles–opening doors, using stairs, sitting and standing.

During their week on crutches, participants had to wear accelerometers around both ankles so we could ensure that they were actually using the brace and crutches when away from the lab. We gave them a shower chair to assist in bathing, as they had to keep the brace on at all times except during sleep. We asked them to track the food that they ate. We also had a member of the research team call and check in on each participant every day during the immobilization week to make sure they were complying with study protocols and weren’t running into any issues.

In addition to immobilization, one group performed daily action observation + mental imagery using a guided video and audio recording, and another group performed daily neuromuscular electrical stimulation on their thigh muscles with a stimulation device we gave them.

We had participants return to the lab for a post-testing visit and again re-tested their muscle strength, size and neuromuscular function. If they lost strength (which almost everyone did), we had them come back to the lab twice a week for lower body resistance training until they regained their strength. We didn’t want them to leave the lab with weak, small muscles because of our experiment. Not very ethical. We ensured they were recovered and as well. Amazingly, no one dropped out during the leg immobilization, and we had 100% compliance.

To read the full Q&A with Harmon, visit the .

• şÚÁϲ»´ňěČ researchers from the Center of Reproductive Evolution published a paper that offers insight into the evolution of giant sperm in male fruit flies and the reproductive tracts of female fruit flies.
• Long sperm tails have evolved in fruit flies because they are better equipped than shorter sperm for the battle to fertilize eggs and because female reproductive tracts are designed to bias fertilization in favor of longer sperm.
• In other words, long sperm tails are the cellular, post-mating equivalent of peacock tails.
• The ability to test the foundations of sexual selection theory, and to develop new hypotheses about the evolution of sexual traits, has been hampered by limited information about the genetics underlying such traits.