The Robert H. Brooks Sports Science Institute is thrilled to welcome six new Clemson faculty and staff members to its cohort of fellows beginning Spring 2025.
Marissa Shuffler
Associate Professor, Psychology
Shuffler has over a decade of experience conducting basic and applied research in the areas of team development, leadership and organizational effectiveness. Shuffler is director of Clemson’s DIGITAL (Deriving Innovative & riGorous scIence for Teaming And Leading) Research Lab, supervising a team of graduate and undergraduate students. Her research focuses on the study of scientifically derived, innovative interventions needed to develop, sustain and maximize inter- and intra-team functioning and wellbeing. Shuffler’s work also addresses the challenges of leading and leadership development in high risk and complex environments, including healthcare systems, the military and spaceflight. To date, Shuffler has served as Principal Investigator or Co-Investigator for more than two dozen research projects totaling over $23 million in funding from federal and private entities. In 2017, Shuffler was awarded a prestigious National Science Foundation CAREER grant for her research exploring team development interventions and the use of latent profile analysis as a mechanism for better designing interventions for team effectiveness.
Jessica Aviles
Assistant Professor, Industrial Engineering
Avilés specializes in understanding how people move, why they move the way they move and how to help them move better. Her passions lie in improving mobility by applying innovative training interventions and assistive devices. Her research interests cover industrial athlete rehabilitation, fall prevention and human factors and ergonomics in healthcare. At Clemson, her work revolves are exoskeletal research. With a doctorate in Biomedical Engineering, Avilés has taught senior-level occupational biomechanics and also the design and analysis of work systems. Avilés is a Brooks grant awardee and principal investigator in the PHASE (Pursuing Health through Adaptation, Sports and Ergonomics) Lab at Clemson.
Tyler Harvey
Senior Lecturer, Bioengineering
Harvey received his Ph.D. in Bioengineering from Clemson in 2018. Since then, he has taught undergraduate courses in sports engineering, bioengineering design theory, applied biomedical design, bioengineering ethics and entrepreneurship and more. His research interests involve cognitive impacts of virtual reality sports training, sports biomechanics, computational modeling of living systems and more. Harvey is passionate about increasing access to STEM for underserved and underrepresented groups.
Amy Pope
Principal Lecturer, Physics and Astronomy
Pope combines her passion for physics and sports to create engaging learning experiences for students. She teaches Physics of Sports, a course that uses real-world athletic scenarios to illustrate core physics principles. Her contributions to The Conversation on the physics of breakdancing and ski jumping highlight the physical processes behind these Olympic sports, making complex concepts relatable to a broader audience. As a faculty member in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, Pope leverages the universal appeal of sports to make physics more accessible, relevant and engaging for all learners.
Leona Ransdell
4-H Equine Program Leader
Ransdell received her B.S. in Animal Science with an Equine Business concentration from Clemson in 2012. She has served as a 4-H Agent with both the Clemson Cooperative Extension and Virginia Cooperative Extension as the 4-H Equine Program Director. In Virginia, Leona led educational teams to multiple wins at the Eastern National 4-H Horse Championships and managed one of the largest youth-only horse shows on the East Coast. She also coached the Virginia Tech Western and Horse Judging teams and taught equine science and biomechanics courses. Additionally, she earned her AQHA Level 1 Judging Card. Returning to Clemson in 2024, Leona hopes to build on the past successes of the 4-H program in South Carolina with a special focus on the educational events and programs to help mitigate the lack of large animal veterinarians. She is excited to further the interests of the equine industry and bring together stakeholders to address and build a strong future for the equine industry in South Carolina.
Christopher Chouinard
Assistant Professor, Chemistry
After briefly working as a project manager for a contract research lab in Massachusetts, Chouinard received Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Florida. There, he worked under world-renowned mass spectrometrist Rick Yost and was responsible for integrating drift tube-ion mobility spectrometry (DTIMS) into the Yost lab. Chris’ interests at UF involved IM-MS studies of clinical molecules (steroids, Vitamin D metabolites) and he received grant funding through the Partnership for Clean Competition to develop novel IM-MS methods for improved identification of anabolic androgenic steroids in athletes. Chouinard then engaged in a prestigious post-doctoral position at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, WA where he worked with Dick Smith, another world leader in mass spectrometry, designing and developing a Structures for Lossless Ion Manipulations (SLIM) platform that enabled the first integration of LC into the SLIM IM-MS pipeline for improved analysis in phosphoproteomics. Chouinard joined Clemson in 2022 and continues his work in ion mobility-mass spectrometry.
Any Clemson faculty or staff making contributions to the sports field, broadly defined, are invited to apply to become members of the Institute. Fellows meet twice annually, collaborate on multi-disciplinary projects and are eligible to receive additional funding from RHBSSI for their work. Click here to view the full list of fellows and click here to learn more about becoming a Brooks Fellow.
