Texas Christian University has launched the Roach Institute of Athlete Engineering, an interdisciplinary institute that will study how athletes, military personnel and workers in physically demanding jobs train, perform and recover in high-pressure environments. The institute is funded by a $10 million gift from The Roach Foundation of Fort Worth announced earlier this year.

Chancellor Daniel W. Pullin announced the institute at TCU’s inaugural Global Human Performance Forum, which convened researchers, industry leaders and practitioners to discuss the future of human performance research. The institute will serve as a hub for research, technology development and cross-disciplinary collaboration aimed at helping people perform safely and effectively in demanding settings.

The institute is built around Athlete Engineering, a discipline founded by Reuben F. Burch V, TCU’s vice provost for research. The field holds that performance is shaped less by the individual than by the surrounding system, including the interaction of people, technology, environments, teams and systems. It applies to traditional athletes as well as “tactical athletes” such as military personnel and first responders and “industrial athletes” in fields such as manufacturing, construction, transportation and logistics. Insights developed in one area can improve outcomes in another.

“Most universities have athletics, and many universities have research, but few intentionally bring those worlds together,” Burch said. “We view athletes as people first and believe the lessons we learn through research can improve lives far beyond the playing field.”

Burch developed Athlete Engineering over more than a decade at Mississippi State University before joining TCU in 2025. University leaders said TCU’s combination of major athletics programs, a growing research enterprise and a location in a top sports market position it to become the national home for the field.

The Roach Foundation’s gift will support research, faculty recruitment, student opportunities and industry partnerships, and advances the interdisciplinary research goals of TCU’s LEAD ON: Values in Action strategic plan and the university’s effort to reach Carnegie Research 1 status by 2035. Pullin said the institute extends recent TCU investments in student health and wellness, including donor-funded strength and recovery facilities, and will “study, scale and replicate elite performance.”

The gift continues a relationship between the Roach family and TCU that spans more than six decades.

“Above all, the new institute will enrich the student experience at TCU with more opportunities for meaningful applied research and discovery in a field that expands the boundaries of human performance,” said Amy Roach Bailey ’89, a TCU trustee and chair of the board’s Academic Affairs Committee.

The institute will be directed by Jim Weinstein, Ph.D., RD, CSSD, FAND, a nutrition scientist and board-certified sports dietitian who retired as a colonel after a 28-year Air Force career and most recently served as deputy director of Athlete Engineering at Mississippi State. His leadership team includes associate director Zachary M. Gillen, an associate professor of kinesiology; chief athlete liaison Spencer Tatum; performance science lead Michael Mydlo; and engineering research lead Anna Grace Dill.

Provost Floyd L. Wormley Jr. called the institute “another giant step forward for TCU,” one that pairs faculty research with practical application and works alongside the university’s broader research initiatives to benefit students and industry partners.