Meet Rachel Pizzolato

Rachel’s brother plays football. Every few months, he needed a new helmet because his cracked from impacts on the field. Knowing that repeated blows to someone’s head can cause long-term brain damage, Rachel went to work to design a helmet to better prevent head injuries.

Rachel looked at the crumple zones and the shock-absorbing effect of a mounting system on a car. This system protected her family when they were involved in a traffic accident, and she wondered if she could apply it in her helmet design.

After several iterations, Rachel created “impulse”—a device that allows the facemask on a helmet to operate much like a suspension system on a modern automobile, significantly reducing the force during front and rear oblique impacts to a helmet’s facemask.

Rachel is seeking a patent for her design and hopes to expand its use to motorsports; contact sports; and in construction, the military, aerospace, and aeronautics.