Featured Post from University of Delaware

AI-powered model predicts post-concussion injury risk in college athletes

Apr 16, 2025

3 min

CaptionResizeWrap TextRemove


Athletes who suffer a concussion have a serious risk of reinjury after returning to play, but identifying which athletes are most vulnerable has always been a bit of a mystery, until now.


Using artificial intelligence (AI), University of Delaware researchers have developed a novel machine learning model that predicts an athlete’s risk of lower-extremity musculoskeletal (MKS) injury after concussion with 95% accuracy. A recent study published in Sports Medicine details the development of the AI model, which builds on previously published research showing that the risk of post-concussion injury doubles, regardless of the sport. The most common post-concussive injuries include sprains, strains, or even broken bones or torn ACLs.


“This is due to brain changes we see post-concussion,” said Thomas Buckley, professor of kinesiology and applied physiology at the College of Health Sciences.


These brain changes affect athletes’ balance, cognition, and reaction times and can be difficult to detect in standard clinical testing.


“Even a minuscule difference in balance, reaction time, or cognitive processing of what’s happening around you can make the difference between getting hurt and not,” Buckley said.


How AI is changing injury risk assessment


Recognizing the need for enhanced injury reduction risk tools, Buckley collaborated with colleagues in UD’s College of Engineering, Austin Brockmeier, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, and César Claros, a fourth-year doctoral student; Wei Qian, associate professor of statistics in the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources; and former KAAP postdoctoral fellow Melissa Anderson, who’s now an assistant professor at Ohio University. To assess injury risk, Brockmeier and Claros developed a comprehensive AI model that analyzes more than 100 variables, including sports and medical histories, concussion type, and pre- and post-concussion cognitive data.


“Every athlete is unique, especially across various sports,” said Brockmeier. “Tracking an athlete’s performance over time, rather than relying on absolute values, helps identify disturbances, deviations, or deficits that, when compared to their baseline, may signal an increased risk of injury.”


While some sports, such as football, carry higher injury risk, the model revealed that individual factors are just as important as the sport played.


“We tested a version of the model that doesn’t have access to the athlete’s sport, and it still accurately predicted injury risk,” Brockmeier said. “This highlights how unique characteristics—not just the inherent risks of a sport—play a critical role in determining the likelihood of future injury,” said Brockmeier.


The research, which tracked athletes over two years, also found that the risk of MSK injury post-concussion extends well into the athlete’s return to play.


“Common sense would suggest that injuries would occur early in an athlete’s return to play, but that’s simply not true,” said Buckley. “Our research shows that the risk of future injury increases over time as athletes compensate and adapt to small deficits they may not even be aware of.”


The next step for Buckey’s Concussion Research Lab is to further collaborate with UD Athletics’ strength and conditioning staff to design real-time interventions that could reduce injury risk.


Beyond sports: AI’s potential in aging research


The implications of the UD-developed machine-learning model extend far beyond sports. Brockmeier believes the algorithm could be used to predict fall risk in patients with Parkinson’s disease.


Claros is also exploring how the injury risk reduction model can be applied to aging research with the Delaware Center for Cognitive Aging.


“We want to use brain measurements to investigate whether baseline lifestyle measurements such as weight, BMI, and smoking history are predictive of future mild cognitive impairment or Alzheimer’s disease,” said Claros.


To arrange an interview with Buckley, email UD's media relations team at MediaRelations@udel.edu

Powered by

You might also like...

Check out some other posts from University of Delaware

2 min

How corporate competition can spur collaborative solutions to the world's problems

Why can’t large competitive companies come together to work on or solve environmental challenges, AI regulation, polarization or other huge problems the world is facing? They can, says the University of Delaware’s Wendy Smith. While it's difficult, the key is to have these companies collaborate under the guise of competition. Smith, a professor of management and an expert on these types of paradoxes, co-authored a recent three-year study of one of the most profound collaborations. Her team looked at the unlikely alliance of 13 competitive oil and gas companies that eventually formed Canada’s Oil Sands Innovation Alliance (COSIA), which works with experts worldwide to find innovative solutions for environmental and technical challenges in the region. Smith and her co-authors found that those companies were willing to collaborate, but only when collaboration was cast in the language, practices and goals of competition. Given the scope of our global problems, companies must continually work together to offer solutions. Creating that collaboration becomes critical, Smith said. This research offers important insight about how these collaborations are possible. Among the study's key findings: Competition can drive cooperation — if leaders harness it. It would make sense to assume that competition undermines collaboration. But the study finds that those who championed alliances used competitive dynamics to strengthen cooperation among rival firms. Rather than suppressing rivalry, leaders leveraged competition as a mechanism to enable joint action toward shared environmental goals. This reframes how organizations can manage tensions between competition and cooperation in partnerships. For example, COSIA leaders created competition between partners to see who would contribute the most valuable environmental innovations. Partners could only gain as much benefit from other company’s innovations commensurate with what they shared. A “Paradox Mindset” is key to complex collaborative success. The research identifies the importance of what the authors call a paradox mindset, which sees competition and cooperation not as opposites to be balanced but as interrelated forces that can be used in tandem. Leaders in the study who adopted this mindset were more thoughtful and creative about how to engage both competitive and collaborative practices in the same alliance. Traditional balance isn’t the goal — process over stability. Instead of pursuing a simplistic “balance” between competing and cooperating, the study shows that effective alliances evolve through process, where competition remains visible and even useful throughout the lifecycle of the alliance. To connect with Smith directly and arrange an interview, visit her profile and click on the "contact" button. Interested journalists can also send an email to MediaRelations@udel.edu.

1 min

Why homelessness is more than a housing issue for students

More than 4,400 students in Delaware were identified as experiencing homelessness during the 2022–23 school year, a number that continues to rise.  Ann M. Aviles, associate professor in the University of Delaware’s College of Education and Human Development, studies education equity, social policy and services for children and families. She is co-author of a new book, "Serving Students Who Are Homeless: A Resource Guide for Schools, Districts, Educational Leaders, and Community Partners", which offers practical guidance for educators navigating the challenges of student homelessness. Nationwide, more than 1.3 million school-aged children experience homelessness annually. While housing instability is often viewed as a social services issue, research shows it has direct and profound consequences for student learning, engagement and well-being. Housing instability affects every aspect of a student’s daily life. Students may be worried about where they will sleep, whether they will have food or how they’ll get home after school. That uncertainty makes it much harder to focus on learning, Aviles said. A key recommendation in Aviles’ new book is stronger collaboration between schools and community organizations. She encourages districts to develop community resource maps that identify local food pantries, shelters, health providers and other support services. She also emphasizes the importance of public understanding of homelessness as a systemic issue shaped by policy, affordability and access to services. To speak with Aviles further, email mediarelations@udel.edu. 

2 min

Maduro is gone; expert details potential impact on the Caribbean

Globally, the ousting of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela has been met with a mix of reactions and cautious optimism. The University of Delaware’s Kalim Shah can discuss how regime change will play across the Caribbean and the spillover effect that will ripple throughout the region – and the world – in the years and decades to come. Shah, professor of energy and environmental policy and an expert on the island nations of the Caribbean, says that although public statements have been muted and restrained, there is a shared understanding. “For small island states that have absorbed the effects of Venezuelan collapse for more than two decades, this moment represents the possible end of a long and destabilizing chapter,” Shah said. Caribbean governments are not celebrating regime change, Shah said. Rather, they are responding to the prospect of reduced systemic risk. “A Venezuela that no longer exports large-scale displacement, opaque energy leverage and permissive criminal governance is objectively preferable for the region.” Shah can discuss several aspects of Venezuela’s political history, how the nation has arrived where it is, where it might be headed and the impact this will have on the Caribbean as a whole. Those include: • Venezuela’s political and economic deterioration during the Chávez–Maduro era and how that has translated directly into pressures felt across the Caribbean in the form of migration, fiscal exposure, security risks and regional uncertainty. • How the nation’s institutional collapse coincided with deepening organized crime activity across the Caribbean basin. Data from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime consistently places the region within major cocaine trafficking corridors linking South America with North American and European markets. For Caribbean governments, this meant higher interdiction costs, increased exposure to transnational criminal networks and growing pressure on already limited security institutions. • This moment invites a reassessment of China’s expanding footprint in the Caribbean, Shah says. He can discuss the ways in which Beijing has deepened its presence throughout the region. Shah says that as this transition unfolds, five policy developments will determine whether the cautious optimism proves warranted: • The impact on Venezuelan outward migration to the Caribbean. • Whether Caribbean public systems receive durable support rather than short-term humanitarian fixes. • Organized crime and drug trafficking pressures in the Caribbean basin. • External security engagement in the Caribbean. • Whether the region avoids a return to dependency-driven energy and infrastructure politics. “For the Caribbean, hope today is not naïve. It is conditional. The Chávez–Maduro years imposed real costs on the region. Their end creates an opening…but only if policy follows through,” Shah said. To contact Shah directly for interviews, visit his expert page and click on the "contact" button. Interested reporters can also send an email to mediarelations@udel.edu.

View all posts
Powered by