Alan Reifman, MA'85, PhD'89

"Hot Hand" analyzes sports streaks, such as New York Yankee Joe DiMaggio getting at least one hit in a record 56 consecutive games in 1941, and the University of Connecticut women's basketball team winning 90 straight games from 2008-2010. The book uses multiple perspectives, including statistical (i.e., what are the odds of a given streak occurring given the athlete or team's prior performance?), psychological/neuroscience (are brain processes conducive to repetition of successful athletic skills?), and organizational (how do successful and unsuccessful teams differ in their management?).

Alan Reifman is Professor of Human Development & Family Studies at Texas Tech University. He studies the transition from adolescence to adulthood ("emerging adulthood") and also teaches statistics. As an off-shoot of his main academic duties, he enjoys applying statistical methods to analyze sports, which is the foundation of his book.