The American Society of Biomechanics (ASB) has chosen Rice University’s B.J. Fregly, a Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT) Scholar and a Trustee Professor of mechanical engineering and of bioengineering, as the recipient of its 2026 Borelli Award, the society’s highest honor.
Founded in 1977, ASB is the leading professional society for academic researchers, clinicians, scientists, students, and industry members working to advance biomechanics and human health. The annual Borelli Award recognizes outstanding career accomplishments by a researcher who has conducted original, high-quality, and impactful research in biomechanics.
“B.J. has been a tremendous colleague since joining the department about a decade ago, making a lasting impact in the classroom and through his research,” said Marcia O’Malley, chair of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Rice. “I’m thrilled to see him recognized with the Borelli Award, a well-deserved acknowledgment of both his sustained excellence and the real-world impact of his work.”
Fregly is internationally recognized for pioneering the use of personalized computer models to design treatments for people with movement impairments. His research combines patient-specific data with advanced computational methods to predict how joints move, muscles generate force and the nervous system coordinates motion. These models enable researchers and clinicians to develop therapies tailored to an individual's unique biomechanics.
Over the course of his career, Fregly has helped establish the field of personalized neuromusculoskeletal modeling. In a landmark study, he demonstrated that a patient-specific computer model could successfully identify walking modifications that reduced stress on arthritic knees — the first validated clinical treatment for a movement impairment designed entirely through personalized computational modeling.
Building on that breakthrough, Fregly spent nearly two decades developing and refining computational tools that make personalized treatment design more accessible to researchers and clinicians. These efforts culminated in the “Neuromusculoskeletal Modeling Pipeline,” an open-source software platform that helps translate biomechanical modeling from the laboratory to clinical practice.
“Dr. Fregly is eminently deserving of this year’s Borelli Award,” said award nominators, Maury Hull, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Biomedical Engineering at the University of California Davis, and Scott Delp, the James A. Clark Professor of Bioengineering, Mechanical Engineering, and Orthopedic Surgery at Stanford University. “Over the next 10 years, we envision clinical applications for stroke neurorehabilitation, exoskeleton controller design, passive exotendon design, and surgical planning for conditions such as medial knee osteoarthritis, pelvic sarcoma, and cerebral palsy to benefit significantly from advances in personalized neuromusculoskeletal modeling, and simulation, with Dr. Fregly’s research playing a key role in that achievement.”
“I feel honored and humbled to be the recipient of this year’s Borelli Award,” Fregly said. “I am grateful to my Ph.D. advisor Felix Zajac and my nominators Maury Hull and Scott Delp, each a previous Borelli Award recipient, for their mentoring and friendship that have helped bring me to this point. I’m excited that the field of neuromusculoskeletal modeling is now at the doorstep of clinical utility and look forward to seeing the impact it will make in the coming years.”