We are very happy to share that one of our members, Cristian Mesquida Caldentey, successfully defended his thesis on January 8th and received his PhD.
In his thesis, Cris investigated the replicability and reproducibility of research in sports and exercise science, showing that the field faces widespread methodological challenges—including underpowered studies, selection bias, incomplete reporting, and misuse of statistical tests—that undermine the credibility of published findings. Through several empirical investigations, he demonstrates that essential practices such as a priori power analyses and transparent methodological reporting are often missing or non-reproducible, and that meta-analyses too frequently lack rigor and openness. His work not only quantifies these issues but also offers concrete recommendations to reduce research waste and strengthen the methodological foundations of the field.
We congratulate Cris on this tremendous achievement and are delighted to announce that he will continue his work at TU/e as a PostDoc, where he will work on MetaCheck, an automated tool to assess research quality and reproducibility. We wish him all the best in this next chapter of his career.