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Alistair Brownlee

Head of Research

Alistair Brownlee is Head of Research, where he leads large-scale analysis of wearable health data to better understand sleep, recovery and human performance, translating these insights into products that help people live healthier lives.

About

Alistair Brownlee is a Founder of Terra Research, a research initiative built on the Terra API platform that leverages large-scale wearable data to deepen understanding of human performance, recovery and health.

Following an 18-year career as an Olympic champion and elite endurance athlete, Alistair developed a strong interest in the objective measurement of physiology. At Terra Research, he focuses on analysing high-resolution, longitudinal data from a wide range of wearable devices to explore how sleep, heart rate variability, training load and behavioural patterns interact over time.

His work centres on robust, objective metrics, with particular emphasis on relative trends, individual baselining and population-level modelling. Recent areas of focus include sleep regularity, strain–recovery dynamics, seasonal variation in physiological markers, and the development of transparent, interpretable health scoring frameworks. Alongside producing research that is accessible and engaging, he is focused on building products that use data to help people live healthier lives.

By combining elite sport insight with large-scale data science, Terra Research aims to move beyond anecdote and optimisation hacks, building instead an evidence-based understanding of how individuals respond to training, stress and lifestyle interventions. The long-term ambition is to transform wearable data from passive tracking into meaningful, scientifically grounded insight that informs both individual decision-making and broader health research.