January 2012 The Science and Technology of Swimming

The next in NUI Galway’s series of public talks on sports technology will focus on ‘Re- Engineering the Swimmer: the Science and Technology of Swimming’. The free event takes place in room 3035 of the new Engineering Building on campus, on Tuesday, 31 January at 6pm. The lecture will be given by Dr Gavin Corley of NUI Galway’s College of Engineering and Informatics, who is himself a competitive swimmer.

Dr Corley’s talk will focus on emerging technologies which are being used to enhance swimming coaching and performance.

“More people in Ireland and the UK participate in swimming than in any other sport, with many of these people swimming at a competitive level,” explains Dr Corley. “Despite this, mainstream swimming hasn’t yet seen the same degree of adoption of new technologies as many other sports such as running or cycling. This is set to change. Recent developments in sensing, communication and material technologies are leading the way for a number of new innovations in swimming performance and coaching.”

Following an overview on the history and physics of swimming, these emerging technologies will be discussed in depth with some conclusions on the future of the technological swimmer.”

Dr Corley has been swimming competitively for most of his life and has spent the last 10 years teaching and coaching swimming. He currently swims with the NUI Galway swimming club.   

Dr Gavin Corley is a post-doctoral researcher in the Bioelectronics Research Cluster at the National Centre for Biomedical Engineering and Science and Adjunct Lecturer in Electrical and Electronic Engineering at NUI Galway. He is working on the commercialisation of therapeutic and sensing technologies for older people. He is also an editor for the online medical device journal, Medgadget, where he writes about emerging medical, health and sporting technologies.

The series of Sports Technology talks is being organised as part of NUI Galway’s degree programme in Sports & Exercise Engineering, whose students are being educated to design the next generation of sports and exercise systems and devices.

For more information on the sports technology talks, which are supported by Engineers Ireland (West), and the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, visit www.ExerciseEngineering.com or call 091 492728.

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