inventing shoes

The first two sub-2 hour marathons and women’s world record - what a day! There is much more to say about that, but cool it also shows up as inventive :).

This was a long, challenging and thrilling project. My main work here was on the stiffening element, though there are other sub-projects, ingredients, that were a part of the development that helped progress toward the ends result but aren’t actually in it.

I was excited to be a small part of a big team who made the shoe for Sebastian Sawe, Tigest Assefa, and Yomif Kejelcha’s epic accomplishments in London 2026.

inventing

A successful World Cup is the main thing, but it’s also cool to the see the ball recognized by TIME as inventive! I was responsible for the aerodynamics of this ball, working with designers, testing teams, and researchers at Loughborough University to keep flight performance strong and the appearance and feel distinctive.

I also worked on some of the patented technology inside for the ‘connected’ elements. The ball project is a fun one, with a long history, momentum, and mature development cycle, yet always creating opportunities to be agile and different!

Soccer in Space

I got to design a “STEMonstration” experiment for NASA! The STEM demo was based on an experiment we conducted in 2019 looking into spinning effects and aerodynamics on the International Space Station.

We wanted to show students how math and physics are used in soccer ball engineering with an engaging demo of spinning balls in microgravity. Three balls were sent up and each was custom-made with specific balance properties to emphasize static and dynamic imbalance.

In addition to the NASA video, we worked with Orion’s Quest, a not-for-profit organization that turns space experiments into classroom lessons. They will take the video from ISS, and combine it with technical descriptions of the observable phenomena for teachers’ lesson plans.

Chasing 100

This was a wild project! I had some work in the prototype shoes, but most of my involvement was in race-related topics. G Wagon configuration, measurement, athlete pacing strategy, location scouting, radio communications plan.

I rode along on a “light bike” providing illumination for the athletes, and it was amazing to see their speed and tenacity throughout the night.

The project had so many angles: product, safety, athletes, logistics, film crews, physiology, heat management…. it was a great learning experience to see the teams work together and solve problems at speed.
A nice overview video was prepared for the whole process.

Gameplan A

adidas publishes a public-facing blog focused on work and life, and they asked me to write an article on one of the recent space projects!

Robot

I managed the development of the massive robot “foot” in the lab. It can be seen in this lab video filmed by FastCo.