17.12.2024Semester Award for Paul Ferdinand Safari

The Bachelor's thesis entitled «RecRef, a Reflection-Promoting Visual Analytics Tool for Athletic Training and Recovery» was conducted under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Jürgen Bernard and Gabriela Morgenshtern. Working in collaboration with Rowing Club Erlenbach, Paul Ferdinand Safari's research brings together athletes' physiological data from athletic sensors and personal reflections, offering a novel approach that provides deeper insight into their well-being, athletic performance, and training recovery.

Unlike conventional athlete-facing tools, which interpret wearable sensor data only through physiological metrics, Safari's tool uniquely prompts athletes to record and reflect on their subjective well-being. This approach provides a nuanced view of recovery and performance, helping athletes identify connections between their emotional state, sleep quality, and physical stress, alongside their smartwatch data. Rowers who tested RecRef over a week of training reported a greater sense of control over their recovery and increased confidence in optimizing their performance, discovering patterns in the data that offered new insights into their mental and physical health.

Paul Ferdinand Safari’s thesis extends beyond theoretical contributions, offering practical implications for athletic coaching, sports technology, and health professionals. This research, which earned him the Spring Semester 2024 Prize for excellence in the IVDA lab, will continue within the DSI Health community in 2025, focusing on adapting these reflection-based tools in a clinical research context.