Professor Steve Haake- Sports Engineering

     Steve Haake is a Professor of Sports Engineering and the Director of Engagement at the Advanced Wellbeing Research Centre at Sheffield Hallam University (Sheffield Hallam University). Professor Haake has his undergraduate degree in physics from the University of Leeds and a PhD from the University of Aston, where he was sponsored by the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrew for his work on golf balls on golf greens (Durrani). Haake found an interest in combining his knowledge of scientific mechanisms with his passion for sports and found that it was widely appreciated by the sports community. Haake works as both a lecturer of mechanical engineering as well as the supervisor of a sports engineering research group that offers assistance to sporting associations worldwide. Haake also is the founder of the Advanced Wellbeing Research Centre at Sheffield Hallam which works to use sports mechanics as a way to help people become more active. Through his publications of books and multiple journal articles as well as his teaching and research Haake has made a name for himself at the forefront of the science of sports. By combining physics and engineering, Haake attempts to understand the mechanics of sports such that he can improve performance and efficiency. 

    Professor Haake has worked on numerous projects through his research group’s consulting program but one that I found extremely interesting was his work, A New Measure of Roughness for Defining the Aerodynamic Performance of Sports Balls.In this journal article Haake and his team discuss how the performance of balls, such as soccer, tennis, and golf, were determined by the roughness k/D. Yet, this measurement was unable to predict the ball’s change from laminar flow to turbulent flow. However, in this paper they hypothesize that through a new statical measurement, one commonly used in tribology, they were able to analyze the full aerodynamic motion of the three different types of balls. This paper has since then been cited in multiple other journal articles that look at contrast swinging in a cricket game or the first serve of a tennis ball. Thus, it is clear that Professor Haake’s work translates directly into the game itself as his analytic techniques and conclusion are used to enhance the play of so many athletes. Professor Haake represents the beginning of an interesting new subfield of science that directly connects performance and physics and engineering. His work is a testament to the interconnectivity of our world and physics! 

Works Cited: 

https://stevehaake.com/research/

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1243/0954406JMES414

https://www.shu.ac.uk/about-us/our-people/staff-profiles/steve-haake