Owen Pearl

Striding scientist: Owen Pearl

School/College: College of Engineering
Degree/Year: BS, mechanical engineering, 2019; MS, mechanical engineering, 2020
Hometown: Hershey, Pennsylvania
Current Job Title: Lead data scientist
Current Employer: Nike Sport Research Lab

How’s your form? Owen Pearl, ENG ’19,’20, is at the cutting edge of answering that question for distance runners across the world as an engineer in Nike’s pioneering Sport Research Lab (NSRL). Based at the company’s headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon, Owen is part of a team in the NSRL that uses a combination of state-of-the-art sensors and advanced computational algorithms to detect the smallest movements of a runner’s form and then provide personalized feedback on key biomechanics indicators to both improve performance and prevent injury.

The sweet spot. Owen was a precocious youth who grew up in the shadow of Hershey Park. Inspired by his faith in God and the work of classical scientists like Pascal, Newton, Boyle, Bacon and Kepler, Owen knew he wanted to dive right into science research as an undergrad. During high school, he contacted faculty at prospective colleges to gauge how receptive they were to the idea. At Temple, he found professors not only open to it, but “excited to have a student reaching out.”

Owen Pearl poses for a photo inside of a Nike sports facility.

Owen benefited from the tutelage of Temple researchers such as Physics Professor Dmitriy Dikin and Engineering Professor Daniel Jacobs. As an undergrad, Owen assisted Dikin as he studied graphene, a two-dimensional super material made of carbon atoms. Later, Jacobs oversaw Owen’s master’s thesis on human biomechanics, for which he received National Science Foundation funding to research new portable biomechanics sensing techniques during his PhD at Carnegie Mellon University’s premier Robotics Institute.

“The body is super complicated. For instance, take muscles: They have multiple passive and active ways of generating force to help our body move. But once we understand them, we can synthesize biomechanics, material science and robotics principles to make some really cool things that make the world a better place.”

—Owen Pearl
Lead data scientist

Drummer boy meets girl. Owen also found room for personal growth at Temple, leveraging a love for drumming into a role as the only non-music major in the Temple Percussion Ensemble. He also met his wife, a Fox School of Business graduate; the couple welcomed their first child last year.

When war broke out in Ukraine, Owen teamed back up with Dikin and Jacobs to hold a virtual “crash course” on biomechanics to help health researchers in the country diagnose injuries and develop prosthetics. He now aims to similarly help everyday athletes across the globe as he and his Nike colleagues roll out free NSRL FORM diagnostic stations at the company’s worldwide stores.

Photography courtesy of Emily Horrell—Nike Innovation Engagement Lead