Brianna Bisesti receives undergraduate research grant and student investigator award

Brianna Bisesti, an athletic training major, recently received both the NEACSM Undergraduate Research Experience Grant and the Undergraduate Student Investigator Award.

The latter was awarded to Bisesti for her oral research presentation at the American College of Sports Medicine New England Chapter (NEACSM) conference held November 8-9, 2012, at the Rhode Island Convention Center in Providence. Her presentation was titled "A Comparison of Knee Moments During a Lateral Cutting Maneuver: Shod Vs. Barefoot" and was completed with the assistance of applied exercise science major Casey Cottle. Professor Lara Carlson, Ph.D, FACSM, and UNE Biomechanics Laboratory Manager Michael Lawrence, M.S., were her research advisors.

The study investigated forces at the knee that strain the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) when athletes are wearing shoes and when barefoot. Findings of the study indicate that performing such maneuvers when barefoot places no more strain on the ACL than when wearing shoes.

In August 2012, Brianna presented a poster regarding preliminary findings of the study at the American Society of Biomechanics (ASB) national conference in Miami, Florida.