Overview of the sports performance training team
The Center for Sports Performance and Research staff work with athletes of all ages and abilities to offer a scientific approach to performance improvement. Our multidisciplinary sports performance training team works with professional, collegiate, high school, Olympic, and Paralympic athletes to help them understand and refine their technique, stance/posture, and cognition.
Center for Sports Performance and Research team
Learn more about our leadership team and support staff.
Medical Director
Eric Berkson, MD, is an orthopedic surgeon specializing in sports medicine and the Medical Director of the Center for Sports Performance and Research.
Dr. Berkson received his BA summa cum laude from Brandeis University and received an MA in computer science from Brandeis University. He graduated from the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine with an MD with Honors in June 2000. He completed an internship in general surgery followed by an orthopedic residency at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. Dr. Berkson completed a fellowship in orthopedic sports medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Dr. Berkson is a member of Mass General Brigham Sports Medicine and is an Assistant Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery at Harvard Medical School. He is a team physician for the Boston Red Sox and is a consultant for the New England Patriots. He is the Head Team Physician for Wheaton College, Eastern Nazarene College, and Archbishop Williams High School. Dr. Berkson was recognized as an “Emerging Leader” by the American Orthopaedic Association.
Clinically, he specializes in the treatment of complex knee ligament and meniscus injuries, revision ACL surgery, cartilage restoration and complex arthroscopic, and reconstructive surgery of the knee and shoulder. Dr. Berkson's current research interests include maximizing return to play and return to performance, pitching injuries and studies of knee, shoulder, and elbow biomechanics.
Director of Recovery and Injury Prevention
Before joining Mass General Brigham Center for Sports Performance and Research, Dave Granito has served as the Head Athletic Trainer for the Detroit Lions and University of Michigan Football. Prior to that he served as an assistant athletic trainer with the New England Patriots for 15 years, where he provided the highest level of integrated sports medicine to all members of the team, staff and football community.
Prior to his stint in Foxborough, Granito spent one season as an associate athletic trainer with the New York Giants and served as a graduate assistant athletic trainer at West Virginia University for two years.
He is a member of the Professional Football Athletic Trainers Society and the National Athletic Trainers Association.
Granito earned his master's degree from WVU in 2001 and received his bachelor's degree from Kean College in 1999.
Director of Research, Mass General Brigham Sports Medicine
Dr. Lattermann began his training at Hannover Medical School in Germany. In 1997 he did a two-year research and clinical fellowship in Sports Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh, USA, before he continued his career as resident in Orthopaedic Surgery from 1999-2004. He continued on to perform a specialty year as junior attending with a focus on trauma (Superchief) at the University of Pittsburgh before he completed a fellowship in Sports Medicine and Cartilage Repair at Rush University in 2006.
Dr Lattermann started his independent career in 2006 at the University of Kentucky where he built a strong clinical research program. He is an expert in cartilage repair, and posttraumatic osteoarthritis as well as more generally in outcomes research and clinical trials.
Dr. Lattermann was appointed Chief of Sports Medicine and Director of the Cartilage Repair Center at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School in 2018. He is an Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School and holds the Brigham and Women’s Endowed Chair for Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine. Dr. Lattermann serves as Co-chair of the Leadership Committee for Mass General Brigham Sports Medicine and is the Director of Research for Mass General Brigham Sports Medicine, overseeing the research program in Sports Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital as well as Massachusetts General Hospital. He serves as scientific advisor for the Center for Sports Performance and Research.
Dr. Lattermann has served as team physician for several professional and Division 1 College teams. He was an assistant team physician for the Chicago White Sox during their World Series winning season in 2005 and also served as assistant team physician for the Chicago Bulls. He was team physician for the D1 SEC, University of Kentucky Wildcats from 2006-2018 and the head team physician of the D1AA Eastern Kentucky Colonels during that time. Dr. Lattermann also took care of numerous high schools during his tenure in Kentucky and since his arrival in Boston developed the Mass General Brigham High School Outreach Program, which currently includes more than 65 public and private high schools in the greater Boston area.
Dr. Lattermann has published over 140 peer-reviewed papers, over 30 book chapters and his research has been funded by national and federal institutions such as the National Institute of Health (NIH), Arthritis Foundation of America (AF), NFL charities, Arthroscopy Association of North America (AANA) and the Physical Therapy Association of America (PTAA).
An active member and speaker in national organizations in the US, Germany and globally, he has held multiple positions on various committees in the American Orthopaedic Society of Sports Medicine (AOSSM), Arthroscopy Association of North America (AANA) as well as the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgery (AAOS). He is the Immediate past Chair of the Research Committee of the German Speaking Arthroscopy Society (AGA). Dr. Lattermann recently served as Program Chair for the World Congress of the International Cartilage Repair Society (ICRS), and its current second Vice President. He is a Founding Board Member of the Biologics Association, a Multispecialty Society Association aimed at directing Orthopaedic Surgeons in the field of Orthobiologics. He is a world renown speaker on the topic of cartilage repair and early osteoarthritis and sought after as teacher and instructor for Orthopaedic Sports Medicine procedures around the knee.
Lead Performance Specialist
Thomas Newman is a highly accomplished sports performance expert with over a decade of experience in the industry. He has a proven track record of optimizing athlete development and achieving winning results on the field. Newman's expertise and leadership skills were honed during his tenure as Director of Student Performance and Innovation at Yale University, where he oversaw all varsity teams and successfully created the first-ever partnerships with the School of Engineering, Medicine, and Public Health. As a result of these collaborations, a comprehensive custom-built digital player profiling platform was created for all 32 varsity teams, which was instrumental in achieving tremendous on-field success.
Program Director
Mark Stephenson currently serves as the program director and leads tactical research initiatives. He brings over 32 years of experience in the human performance field. Previously, he was the Human Performance Program Manager for a special operations force unit at USSOCOM, and held sports performance leadership positions, including Head Strength and Conditioning Coach (NCAA Div. 1), Director of Player Performance (NFL), and TSAC director for the National Strength and Conditioning Association.
He holds several sports performance and sports medicine certifications: Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS), Certified Tactical Strength and Conditioning Facilitator (TSAC-F), Certified Athletic Trainer (ATC), and Certified Brain Enhanced and Recovery System (BEARS) provider; and holds advanced degrees in Exercise and Sports Science and in Sports and Performance Psychology.
Biomedical Engineer
Beth Wilcox, PhD, is a biomedical engineer specializing in musculoskeletal biomechanics with experience spanning sports performance and injuries, space and military applications, and medical devices and rehabilitation interventions.
Dr. Wilcox has conducted research across both industry and academia, most recently as a Principal Scientist of Translational Engineering at Vertex Pharmaceuticals where she focused on surgical strategy and instrumentation. Prior to that, she led the team in the Human Performance Engineering Lab at Reebok (Adidas) in Boston, whose primary focus was to design and conduct biomechanical, mechanical, physiological, and sensory research studies to evaluate sports equipment, wearable technologies, footwear, and apparel.
Prior to joining Reebok, Dr. Wilcox was a Clinical Research Scientist and Instructor of Orthopedics (Research) in the Department of Orthopedic Research at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University and Rhode Island Hospital where she focused on sports injury, neuromotor rehabilitation, and bioinstrumentation. She obtained her PhD in Biomedical Engineering from Brown University in 2014, where her doctoral thesis was focused on the biomechanics of sport-related mild traumatic brain injury.
