SPORTS

She's a Brown University Ph.D. student. She's also a top Golden Gloves boxing competitor.

Greg Sullivan
Special to The Herald News
  • Hannah Doyle is boxing under the banner of Punishment Striking Systems of Swansea
  • She began boxing in 2020, looking for a way to exercise during the pandemic
  • A neuroscientist, she says there's no greater risk of brain injury than with any other contact sport

FALL RIVER — Hannah Doyle is probably the only competitor in this year's Southern New England Golden Gloves (SNEGG) amateur boxing tournament who spends any time contemplating how brain processing sequences is tied into a boxer putting together a sequence of punches.

A winner in Saturday's sub-novice division finals at 119 pounds, Doyle, 26, is also a neuroscience Ph.D. student at Brown University. She's about halfway through the immensely challenging study of the brain and spine. With her master's degree already secured, she aims to be a researcher.

Doyle, a Providence resident, used her sequences of punches, aka combinations, to sock it to Katherine Roberti, of Legendary Boxing in Providence, in front of 400 or so fans on Saturday at the Fall River Police Athletic League.

Hannah Doyle, a Ph.D. student at Brown University, made it to the finals of this year's Southern New England Golden Gloves.

Doyle, who grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and graduated magna cum laude from Davidson University, competed in the SNEGG under the banner of the Punishment Striking Systems gym in Swansea, where she has been sparring a couple of times per week. Her home gym is Elite Boxing in North Attleboro, where her trainer (and boyfriend) is Mike Cusato, a boxing product of Punishment Striking and a finalist himself.

Aaron Bernardo, Punishment Striking's owner and head coach, describes Elite as “our sister gym.”

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Doyle has had four fights, with three wins. Her loss came a couple of months back when the West Point Cadets boxing team competed against a SNEGG team at the PAL. Doyle wasn't thrilled with her performance that night. “I was very embarrassed,” she said. “I think I've improved a lot since October.”

Hannah Doyle, left, won the novice Golden Gloves at 119 pounds against Katherine Roberti during the Southern New England Golden Gloves finals at the Fall River PAL Hall on Saturday, Jan. 29, 2023.

How Hannah Doyle's boxing career began

Boxing is the first sport to have truly flipped Doyle's switch. In high school in Wisconsin, she played on the basketball and volleyball teams, neither of which were very good. “I didn't feel very athletically inclined,” she said. And, she added, she suffered from sports-induced anaphylaxis, a serious allergic reaction condition.

She said that condition cleared up when she was about 20, while studying neuroscience at Davidson.

Boxing came into her life courtesy of the pandemic. She was looking for a way to exercise and gave boxing training a shot at Title Boxing gym near the school in Davidson, N.C. She enjoyed the workouts but was a little frustrated at not being taught much boxing technique.

When she arrived in Providence to begin her pursuit of the Ph.D., she sought a boxing gym. She searched online and liked what she saw about Elite Boxing. It seemed to be a family gym. There would be other women.

There was also a man waiting in the wings.

“I started learning technique,” she said.

“I met Mike Cusato. He got me into sparring,” Doyle said. “I realized, this is really fun. It's a great workout. I like studying combinations of punches.”

Once she sparred, Doyle realized the workout side of boxing was not going to satisfy her. There was a previously unknown hunger inside her. She needed to compete, to fight, before judges, in a ring with a referee and an opponent looking to knock her block off.

She's been training with Cusato, 28, since October 2021. They've been dating for two years.

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What does the future hold?

Doyle's family has not yet seen her box in person but they've gotten videos. Doyle said her dad is “very excited” about his daughter mixing neuroscience and the sweet science in her life. She said her dad is friendly with Israel “Shorty” Acosta, a former Golden Gloves national champion and for decades one of the most respected boxing trainers in Wisconsin.

“My mom's not as excited,” Doyle said. “But she's come to terms with it.”

A highly educated and intelligent woman, Doyle likes to give her brain a rest when the bell rings to start a bout. “If I overthink, I do worse. I try to rely on muscle memory and the skills I've learned,” she said.

Doyle said she doesn't know how long she will box competitively but that she wants to keep improving and advancing to even bigger tournaments.

Doyle knows many folks wonder what could prompt a student of neuroscience to be a competitive boxer. Doesn't boxing come quickly to mind when the topic of sports-related brain injuries is discussed? She's heard the question, more than once.

“I look at it as I'd look at any other contact sport,” she said. “There's risk in any contact sport.”

She said she has a soccer-playing friend who has endured multiple concussions. Doyle said that her boxing has not even hinted at causing any head issues.

Boxing's benefits have reached beyond her physical health, she says, in a way she had never imagined. Doyle said she's become self-confident, in her everyday interactions with people, and with her decision-making.

“It's influenced my life in every way,” she said.