Christopher Yakacki

left to right: Yakacki, Carpenter, Jenkins; not pictured: Yu, Poddar

Christopher Yakacki, associate professor of mechanical engineering, along with mechanical engineering associate professor Dana Carpenter, professor Peter Jenkins, assistant professor Kai Yu, and Dr. Sourav Poddar from CU sports medicine, are leading one of seven research projects selected for funding by the Pac-12 Student-Athlete Health and Well-Being Initiative’s grant program for the 2019-20 year.

Their project, Head Trauma: Designing Safer Helmets Using Advanced Materials and Modeling, seeks to leverage this state-of-the-art technology and create new models to improve football helmet safety using a recently developed high-performance polymer called liquid-crystal elastomers (LCEs). The goal is to lower the severity of impacts and reduce the prevalence of concussions in the sport.

Congratulations!

Read the Pac-12 press release.