NE North Dakota News

A group of Biomedical Engineering students from the University of North Dakota (UND) has embarked on a research project in collaboration with the USA Luge Team. This initiative aims to explore potential improvements in brain health for Olympic athletes involved in winter sliding sports like luge, skeleton, and bobsled.

The project was initiated by Paige Jones, a member of the U.S. Ski Jumping Team and a sophomore at UND. Jones became interested in understanding how inertial forces affect athletes in these high-speed sports. After discussing her ideas with fellow athletes, she secured a research agreement with USA Luge to gather relevant data.

Jones, currently competing at the FIS Ski Jumping World Cup in Zhangjiakou, China, was unable to provide comments for this article. However, her efforts led to the formation of a student team that traveled to Lake Placid, N.Y., where they spent four days attaching sensors to athletes' helmets during practice runs. The data collected will be analyzed to suggest potential improvements in equipment or training practices.

Dan Ewert, professor of Biomedical Engineering at UND, highlighted this project as an example of the department's "Innovation-Based Learning" approach. This educational method emphasizes hands-on learning and interdisciplinary collaboration as part of UND's strategic plan.

“The University of North Dakota is a pioneer in the innovation-based learning educational process," said Ewert. "Students form teams to do something that has never been done before."

Gabriel Hanson, a freshman and member of the research team, expressed excitement about their work and its potential impact on Olympic athletes' training and safety.

“This project highlights the capabilities that you get with an innovation-based learning classroom,” Hanson said.

The research involved obtaining necessary permissions from both USA Luge and UND’s Institutional Review Board (IRB), which oversees human subject research ethics and data security.

Ewert praised the students' dedication: “They did an awesome job on this project. I’m just so proud of them.”