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What Matters.
Sports Equity Lab is a first of its kind, 100% athlete-led Stanford program that advances team culture, human connection, and an ethic of care as the foundation of sustainable high performance. We combine rigorous science, global partnerships, storytelling, and responsible innovation to make the invisible visible.
Sport as a System for Human Flourishing
The Sports Equity Lab measures, optimizes, and scales the intangible metrics of sustainable high performance: culture, connection, and care. We center sport as a complex ecological system through which human flourishing can be understood, cultivated, and sustained.
"Our vision is a world where everyone has access to culture-forward, relational, and caring sports systems — and their tools."
Intentional environments that reflect shared values and an Ubuntu identity.
Relational bonds that sustain belonging, mutual trust, and resilience.
Systems designed around dignity, wellbeing, and the whole person.
Grounded in Science,
Guided by Ethics
Grounded in Ecological Systems Theory and Care Ethics, the Lab examines how performance emerges from dynamic interactions among biological, psychological, cultural, social, organizational, and policy environments — and how these systems must be intentionally designed to prioritize dignity, mutuality, and well-being.
The conditions from which sustainable excellence emerges.
The Metrics That Matter Most
GPS data, force plates, and box scores are easy to measure. Culture, connection, and care are not — but they are the conditions from which sustainable excellence emerges. The Sports Equity Lab exists to change what we measure, and therefore what we build.
Culture
Culture is the invisible architecture of high performance. It is the set of shared values, norms, and identities that shape how people behave when no one is watching. The Sports Equity Lab studies how intentional, inclusive cultures — grounded in an Ubuntu philosophy of collective identity — create the conditions in which athletes, coaches, and organizations can truly thrive.
Connection
Connection is the relational fabric that holds sports systems together. Research consistently shows that the quality of relationships — between coaches and athletes, among teammates, across institutions — is one of the strongest predictors of both performance and wellbeing. The Sports Equity Lab examines how to build and sustain the bonds of belonging, mutual trust, and resilience that make teams more than the sum of their parts.
Care
Care is the ethical foundation of sustainable sport. Grounded in Care Ethics, we examine how sports systems must be intentionally designed to prioritize dignity, mutuality, and wellbeing — for athletes, coaches, and communities alike. Care is not soft: it is the structural condition for excellence.
Four Verticals. One Mission.
We deliver on our mission through four interconnected areas of work — each reinforcing the others, and all oriented toward generating evidence, practices, and leaders capable of strengthening the conditions for excellence.
Science
Rigorous, multidisciplinary research grounded in Ecological Systems Theory and Care Ethics. We generate evidence on how performance emerges from dynamic interactions among biological, psychological, cultural, social, organizational, and policy environments.
Summits
Convening spaces where athletes, coaches, scientists, policymakers, and community leaders come together to translate research into practice. Our summits are designed for dialogue, co-creation, and collective action toward fairer sports systems.
Storytelling
Narratives that make the science accessible and the human experience visible. From long-form investigative journalism to short documentary content, we tell the stories of athletes, coaches, and communities navigating the intersection of performance and equity.
Sustainable Innovation
Responsible product innovation that translates research into tools for practitioners. We develop assessment frameworks, digital platforms, and training programs that help sports organizations measure and improve culture, connection, and care.
Grounded in Rigorous Science
The Sports Equity Lab's work is grounded in two complementary theoretical traditions that together provide a comprehensive framework for understanding and improving sports systems.
Ecological Systems Theory
Bronfenbrenner, 1979Human development — and by extension, athletic performance — is shaped by nested systems of influence: from the biological and psychological to the cultural, organizational, policy, and planetary environments. The Sports Equity Lab applies this framework to understand how performance emerges from dynamic interactions across all of these levels. The novel departure of our work is emphasis on the quality of the socioecological soil as a driver of peak performance.
Care Ethics
Noddings, Gilligan, HeldCare Ethics holds that moral life is fundamentally relational — that our obligations to one another emerge from relationships of dependency, trust, and mutual responsibility. Applied to sport, this means designing systems that prioritize the dignity and wellbeing of every participant, not merely their performance outputs.
Serial Winning
Mallett & Lara-Bercial, 2016Serial winning coaches' day-to-day practice is categorized into three themes. One, they are master architects of culture, building stable environments where excellence is nurtured. Two, these coaches also prioritize high-quality relationships. While they hold high standards, they adopt a humanistic and self-aware approach. Finally, as "benevolent dictators" or "righteous adventurers," they have a clear vision, philosophy, and a relentless habit of constant reviewing and adjusting.
Through rigorous, multidisciplinary research and its translation into convening, storytelling, and responsible product innovation, the Center conceptualizes high performance as an ethical, inclusive, and sustainable outcome of caring systems — generating evidence, practices, and leaders capable of strengthening the conditions for excellence within sport and across society.
Athlete
A Global Community of Changemakers
The Sports Equity Lab works with a global network of mentors, scientists, and collaborators who share a commitment to building fairer, more caring sports systems. Together, we generate evidence, practices, and leaders capable of strengthening the conditions for excellence within sport and across society.
Scientists & Researchers
Sports scientists, psychologists, sociologists, and public health researchers contributing rigorous evidence to our understanding of culture, connection, and care in sport.
Athletes & Coaches
Current and former athletes, coaches, and practitioners who bring lived experience and practical wisdom to our research, summits, and storytelling.
Mentors & Leaders
Experienced leaders in sport, equity, and organizational development who guide the next generation of practitioners and researchers in the field.
Global Collaborators
International partners across academia, civil society, and the sports industry who help us translate research into practice across diverse cultural contexts.
Our Directors
The Sports Equity Lab is guided by a distinguished group of physician-scientists, Olympians, legal advocates, and elite coaches — united by a shared conviction that sport can and must be a more equitable, caring, and humanizing force in the world.
Yetsa Tuakli-WosornuMD MPH
Physician-scientist and global health leader whose work bridges sports medicine, public health, and human rights. Dr. Tuakli-Wosornu founded the Sports Equity Lab to build the scientific and ethical infrastructure that sport needs to become a force for human flourishing.
Edwin MosesOLY
Two-time Olympic gold medalist and world record holder in the 400m hurdles. A lifelong advocate for clean sport, athlete rights, and equity, Edwin Moses brings unparalleled credibility and lived experience to the Lab's mission of making sport fairer for everyone.
Sarah KleinEsq.
Pioneering attorney and athlete advocate whose landmark legal work has transformed safeguarding in sport. Sarah Klein brings a justice-centered lens to the Sports Equity Lab's commitment to dignity, protection, and systemic accountability in sports systems.
Coach Loren Seagrave
Elite track and field coach with decades of experience developing world-class sprinters. Coach Seagrave's expertise in high-performance training, athlete development, and coaching culture grounds the Lab's work in the practical realities of competitive sport.
Katharina GrimmMD
Sports medicine physician and advocate for athlete health, wellbeing, and safe sport. Dr. Grimm's clinical and research expertise in the intersection of medicine, performance, and care ethics strengthens the Lab's commitment to whole-person athlete welfare.
From an Envelope to Stanford
The concept for the SEL is sketched on the back of an envelope at the Rio Paralympic Games.
SEL is founded outside Yale's Medical Library with four medical students: Drs. Taylor Ottesen, Nida Naushad, Laurel Kaye, and Kimberly Ona Ayala.
SEL members publish 70+ peer-reviewed manuscripts, contribute four invited global sports policy statements, and present research worldwide.
Operations expand to Ghana to translate research into community impact. With support from On, SEL delivers programming reaching 500+ youth, 5,000+ professional athletes, and 36 African Ministers of Sport.
SEL is recruited to Stanford University to scale.
"A world where everyone has access to culture-forward, relational, and caring sports systems — and their tools."
The Sports Equity Lab generates evidence, practices, and leaders capable of strengthening the conditions for excellence within sport and across society — strengthening both human potential and the public good.
Rigorous, multidisciplinary research that generates reliable knowledge about what works in sports systems.
Translating research into actionable frameworks, tools, and programs that practitioners can use immediately.
Developing the next generation of leaders who understand sport as an ethical, ecological, and human system.
Join the Movement to Humanize Sport
Whether you're a researcher, athlete, coach, policymaker, or community member — there is a place for you in the Sports Equity Lab network. Together, we are building the evidence, practices, and leaders that sport needs.
Start a Conversation
We welcome inquiries from researchers, practitioners, athletes, coaches, journalists, and anyone committed to building fairer sports systems. Reach out to explore collaboration, partnership, or simply to connect.