Welcome to the SFU Sports Analytics Group Virtual Seminar Series webpage!
The series has been running since May 2020 and features over 40 talks by thought leaders in sports analytics.
The seminars are delivered via Zoom. For the Fall 2024 semester, the seminars will typically be held on Thursdays at 10 am Pacific time. The format is ~45 min of speaking, 20 min of questions, and some informal discussion.
To join the seminar mailing list, which includes calendar invitations to the talks, please contact us.
Speakers are asked to give a talk that will appeal to a broad audience, which typically includes academic researchers (professors and students) and sport scientists and administrators who work for teams, companies, and high-performance sport. We are always seeking speakers, so if you have suggestions, please contact us.
Upcoming talks
| Date | Presenter(s) | Role & Affiliation | Tentative topic |
|---|---|---|---|
| Thursday Nov 14, 2024; 10 am | Dr. Michael McBride |
Professor of Economics, University of California - Irvine | Team production in baseball: Using the Shapley Value to assign credit for offensive performance https://www.faircreditbaseball.com/ |
| Tuesday Nov 26, 2024; 11:30 am | Eli Mizelman | PhD candidate, Department of Biomedical Physiology and Kinesiology, Simon Fraser University | Evaluating physiologically interpretable models of athlete velocity-duration data in NCAA men’s soccer players and professional women’s soccer players |
| Wednesday December 11, 2024; 3 pm PST | Dr. Grant Duthie | Senior Lecturer, School of Behavioural and Health Sciences and Sports Performance, Recovery, Injury and New Technologies (SPRINT) Research Centre, Australian Catholic University Strathfield | Empowering Athletes and Coaches: How AI and Portable Biomechanics Labs Are Transforming Sport Science |
Past talks
Oct 10, 2024: Potential interplay between sports analytics and the science of visually guided movement and collision avoidance behaviour
| Presenter(s) | Role & Affiliation |
|---|---|
| Dr. Dan Marigold |
Professor, Department of Biomedical Physiology and Kinesiology, Simon Fraser University |
Keywords: sensorimotor control, gaze strategies, walking collision avoidance, expected path value
This talk was not recorded. A related preprint can be found here: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.06.11.598509v1
Sep 20, 2024: Latent Markov Models and their applications in sports analytics
| Presenter(s) | Role & Affiliation |
|---|---|
| Dr. Rouven Michels |
Recent PhD graduate from Bielefeld University, Germany |
Keywords: Latent markov models, football, soccer, basketball, betting
June 29, 2024: Developing a performance strategy in professional sports teams
| Presenter(s) | Role & Affiliation |
|---|---|
| Dr. Ben Sporer | Vice President, Performance Strategy Research and Innovation, Vancouver Whitecaps FC |
Keywords: soccer, performance strategy, Vancouver Whitecaps
This talk was not recorded.
June 14, 2024: Understanding how birthdate and birthplace influence sport participation and performance
| Presenter(s) | Role & Affiliation |
|---|---|
| David Hancock, PhD | Associate Professor, School of Human Kinetics & Recreation, Memorial University of Newfoundland; Owner, A Focused Mind Sports Consulting |
Keywords: relative age effects, birthplace effects, talent development, youth sport
April 26, 2024: Presenting multiagent challenges in team sports analytics
| Presenter(s) | Role & Affiliation |
|---|---|
| David Radke, PhD | Senior Research Scientist, Hockey Strategy and Analytics, Chicago Blackhawks |
Keywords: multiagent systems, artificial intelligence, hockey, soccer
March 8, 2024: NFL Ghosts - A framework for evaluating defender positioning using high-dimensional conditional density estimates
| Presenter(s) | Role & Affiliation |
|---|---|
| Ron Yurko, PhD | Assistant Teaching Professor, Department of Statistics & Data Science, Carnegie Mellon University |
Keywords: American football, NFL, player tracking data, defender positioning, spatiotemporal statistics, high-dimensional conditional density estimation
February 16, 2024: Single agent behavior prediction in soccer using linear temporal logic
| Presenter(s) | Role & Affiliation |
|---|---|
| Sana Arastehfar, MSc | CANSSI-supported graduate student, School of Computing & Department of Mathematics, Queen's University (co-supervisors: Dr. Christian Muise, Dr. Catherine Pfaff) |
Keywords: soccer, player tracking, linear temporal logic, BayesLTL, performance analysis
January 19, 2024: Championing Analytics: Sports analytics supports historic SFU GNAC Soccer Championship wins
Presenter(s) |
Role & Affiliation |
|---|---|
Jonas Worth, MSc.
Tyler Oh
|
Assistant Coach and Performance Analyst, Simon Fraser University Soccer
Data Science undergraduate students, Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science, Simon Fraser University |
Keywords: performance analysis, sports analytics, soccer, education
October 27, 2023: Making the invisible, visible: The challenges of incorporating mental measures and why they should be part of data analytics
| Presenter(s) | Role & Affiliation |
|---|---|
Ryan Stolys Kim Senecal
|
Co-founder and Technical Lead Co-founder and Mental Performance Specialist One Iota Performance, Inc. |
Keywords: mental performance, golf, self-report data
July 21, 2023: Legal aspects of gender in sport
| Presenter(s) | Role & Affiliation |
|---|---|
| Carlos Sayao Carlos Lopez |
Partner, Tyr LLP Sports Counsel, Tyr LLP |
Keywords: sex, gender, transgender, human rights, athletics, sport law
June 16, 2023: Credibility in Physical eSports
| Presenter(s) | Role & Affiliation |
|---|---|
Bjoern Ossenbrink, MSc Normand Richard, MSc |
Principal, MultiSport Science Principal, Richard Physiological Services |
Keywords: eSports, cycling, endurance performance, cheating, doping
May 12, 2023: Cliquey soccer - controlling ball progression
| Presenter(s) | Role & Affiliation |
|---|---|
| Dr. Catherine Pfaff and students | Assistant Professor, Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Queen's University |
Keywords: soccer, passing, configurations, spatial models, clustering.
Feb 10, 2023: Modeling training load responses for performance optimization in sports
| Presenter(s) | Role & Affiliation |
|---|---|
| Dr. Frank Imbach |
Head of R&D, Seenovate L’Unité Dynamique Du Muscle et Métabolisme, l’Institut national de recherche pour l’agriculture, l’alimentation et l’environnement, Université de Montpellier. |
Keywords: training load quantification, resistance training, GPS data, machine learning, fitness-fatigue models
January 20, 2023: Critical power: modern applications of a classical concept
| Presenter(s) | Role & Affiliation |
|---|---|
| Dr. Kevin Caen |
Postdoctoral researcher, Exercise Physiology Research Group, Deparment of Movement and Sport Sciences, Ghent University, Belgium |
Keywords: critical power model, W'balance model, endurance sports, physiological thresholds
December 16, 2022: Pass Evaluation in Women’s Olympic Ice Hockey
2022 Big Data Cup Winners!
| Presenter(s) | Role & Affiliation |
|---|---|
| Robyn Ritchie Phil Shreeves Alon Harell |
Graduate students, Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science Graduate student, School of Engineering Science |
Keywords: women's hockey, Olympics, passing, power plays
November 18, 2022: Informal discussion on upcoming FIFA World Cup
| Presenter(s) | Role & Affiliation |
|---|---|
| Dr. Tim Swartz | Professor, Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science, Simon Fraser University |
Keywords: soccer, World Cup
June 3, 2022: Can interval training models be improved?
| Presenter(s) | Role & Affiliation |
|---|---|
| Jeremy Briand |
Graduate student, École de kinésiologie et des sciences de l’activité physique, l’Université de Montréal Research assistant, Institut National de Sport du Québec Supervised by Dr. Guy Thibault and Dr. Jonathan Tremblay |
Keywords: interval training, mathematical model, optimization, critical power, W'
May 5, 2022: Understanding training load as exposure and dose: lessons we can learn from epidemiology
| Presenter(s) | Role & Affiliation |
|---|---|
| Prof. Franco Impellizzeri |
Professor, School of Sport, Exercise and Rehabilitation, Faculty of Health, University of Technology Sydney |
Keywords: training load (external and internal), training effects (acute, chronic, positive, negative), research methodology, theory, constructs, validation
April 29, 2022: 1 - Wu: Evaluation of off-the-ball actions in soccer; 2 - Dona: Expected economy rate in cricket
| Presenter(s) | Role & Affiliation |
|---|---|
| Lucas Wu, Nirodha Epasinghege Dona | Graduate students, Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science, Simon Fraser University (Supervisor: Dr. Tim Swartz) |
Keywords: soccer, defence, off-the-ball actions, cricket, bowling, economy rate
March 18, 2022: Qualitative data and its usefulness in sport analytics
| Presenter(s) | Role & Affiliation |
|---|---|
| Dr. William (Bill) Foster | Professor, Department of Social Sciences (Management Program), University of Alberta (Augustana Campus) |
Keywords: qualitative research
March 4, 2022: The Evolution of Analytics – Mining for Gold
| Presenter(s) | Role & Affiliation |
|---|---|
Kevin Palmer Gerry Geurts |
Purveyor of analytics for curling at http://curlwithmath.ca & the ROCK LOGIC podcast Entrepreneur and President of @CurlingZone |
Keywords: curling
Feb 18, 2022: Punt Returns: Using the Math to Find the Path
| Presenter(s) | Role & Affiliation |
|---|---|
| Robyn Ritchie, Brendan Kumagai, Elijah Cavan, Ryker Moreau | Graduate students, Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science, Simon Fraser University |
Keywords: football, punt returns, special teams, 4th NFL Big Data Bowl
Jan 21, 2022: Bayesian Space-time models for Possession Added Value in Hockey
| Presenter(s) | Role & Affiliation |
|---|---|
| Tyrel Stokes Brendan Kumagai |
PhD candidate, Department of Mathematics and Statistics, McGill University (supervisors: Dr. Russell Steele, Dr. Ian Shrier) MSc student, Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science, Simon Fraser University |
Keywords: expected possession, expected goals, Bayesian, hockey
Dec 10, 2021: Hydraulic models of human performance during high-intensity intermittent exercise
| Presenter(s) | Role & Affiliation |
|---|---|
| Fabian Weigend | PhD candidate University of Western Sydney (Supervisor: Dr. Jason Seigler) |
Keywords: modeling, evolutionary optimization, high-intensity intermittent exercise, exercise physiology.
Nov 12, 2021: Advances in computer vision for hockey analytics
| Presenter(s) | Role & Affiliation |
|---|---|
| Dr. Mehrnaz Fani Kanav Vats |
Postdoctoral fellow PhD student Sports Analytics Research Group, Vision and Image Processing Research Group, Department of Systems Engineering, University of Waterloo (supervisor: Dr. David Clausi) |
Keywords: computer vision, broadcast video, machine learning, pose estimation, hockey
Oct 29, 2021: Examining the Consumption of Sports Events across TV and Social Media
| Presenter(s) | Role & Affiliation |
|---|---|
| Dr. Yupin Yang | Associate Professor, Marketing, Beedie School of Business, Simon Fraser University |
Keywords: business, marketing, car racing, social media, television, latent Dirichlet models
July 23, 2021: Competitor strength in multicompetitor games with scored outcomes
| Presenter(s) | Role & Affiliation |
|---|---|
| Jonathan Che | PhD student, Department of Statistics, Harvard University (collaborative work with Dr. Mark Glickman, funded by US Olympic & Paralympic Committee) |
Keywords: performance ability, rank, score, dynamic linear model, Bayesian inference
July 9, 2021: Using Kinematic Measurements to Improve Athlete Monitoring in Wheelchair Court Sports
| Presenter(s) | Role & Affiliation |
|---|---|
| Rob Rupf | PhD candidate, Faculty of Kinesiology and Physical Education, University of Toronto (supervisor: Dr. Scott Thomas) |
Keywords: Paralympics, wheelchair sports, inertial measurement unit (IMU), training load, performance analysis, portable technologies, physics-based models
June 18, 2021: Sprinting for the win: insights from supply & demand modeling
| Presenter(s) | Role & Affiliation |
|---|---|
| Dr. Jim Martin | Associate Professor, Department of Nutrition & Integrative Physiology, University of Utah |
Keywords: physics-based performance models, cycling, power meters, portable technologies
The link to the sprint finish video compilation presented during the talk can be found here. This video was omitted from the recording to avoid copyright issues.
June 4, 2021: Causal inference short course, session 2 - Causal discovery & causal research questions in sports analytics
| Presenter(s) | Role & Affiliation |
|---|---|
| Dr. Oliver Schute | Professor, School of Computing Science, Simon Fraser University |
Keywords: causal inference, causal discovery, hockey, running, performance model
May 28, 2021: Causal inference short course, session 1 - Introduction to Causal DAGs
| Presenter(s) | Role & Affiliation |
|---|---|
| Dr. Ian Shrier | Sport Medicine Physician Senior Investigator, Centre for Clinical Epidemiology, Lady Davis Institute Associate Professor, Department of Family Medicine, McGill University |
Keywords: causal inference, directed acyclic graphs
April 23, 2021: Sports analytics is a science and an art: A conversation with data journalist Alison Lukan
| Presenter(s) | Role & Affiliation |
|---|---|
| Alison Lukan | Analytics-focused hockey journalist |
Keywords: communication, working in sport, hockey
April 9, 2021: The Athlete Biological Passport
| Presenter(s) | Role & Affiliation |
|---|---|
| Dr. Reid Aikin | Deputy Director of Science (which includes overseeing the Athlete Biological Passport), World Anti-Doping Association |
Keywords: doping detection, Bayesian methods
Special post: Athlete Talent Identification
Talk by SFU SAG Faculty member Dr. Peter Tingling at the 2021 Sport Biometrics Conference
| Presenter(s) | Role & Affiliation |
|---|---|
| Dr. Peter Tingling | Associate Dean of Undergraduate Programs & Associate Professor of Management, Beedie School of Business, Simon Fraser University |
Keywords: player valuation, decision making, draft, NHL, hockey
March 26, 2021: Performance models for doping risk assessment
| Presenter(s) | Role & Affiliation |
|---|---|
Prof. James Hopker
Prof. Jim Griffin |
Professor of Exercise Physiology, Deputy Director of the Division of Natural Sciences, Director of Postgraduate Research, School of Sport and Exercise Sciences, University of Kent, UK. Professor of Statistics, Department of Statistical Science, University College London, UK. |
Keywords: doping detection, athlete career trajectory modeling, functional data analysis, splines, Bayesian statistics
This talk was not recorded.
The basis of the talk was this paper.
March 12, 2021: Monitoring the Return to Sport Transition After ACL Injury
| Presenter(s) | Role & Affiliation |
|---|---|
| Dr. Matt Jordan | Director of Sport Science, Canadian Sport Institute Calgary Adjunct Professor, School of Kinesiology, University of Calgary Adjunct Professor, School of Medical and Health Sciences at Edith Cowan University (Perth, Australia) |
Keywords: data-informed rehabilitation, generalized additive mixed models
February 26, 2021: Causal Inference, mediation and interaction
| Presenter(s) | Role & Affiliation |
|---|---|
| Dr. Ian Shrier | Sport Medicine Physician Senior Investigator, Centre for Clinical Epidemiology, Lady Davis Institute Associate Professor, Department of Family Medicine, McGill University |
Keywords: causal inference, injury surveillance
Note that two segments were not included in the recording due to copyrighted video being shown.
February 12, 2021: Tracking players: What you see is what you get!
| Presenter(s) | Role & Affiliation |
|---|---|
| Dr. Mike Jamieson | Director of Computer Vision Research, Sportlogiq |
Keywords: computer vision, hockey, soccer
Note that two brief (~20-30 sec) segments were trimmed from the recording due to copyrighted video being shown during the presentation.
January 29, 2021: Injury prevention, workloads, and analytics - Research & applied practice
| Presenter(s) | Role & Affiliation |
|---|---|
| Dr. Johann Windt | Head of Data Science – Performance, Vancouver Whitecaps FC |
Keywords: data science, working in professional sport, soccer, injury surveillance
Note that the audio is somewhat distorted.
Dr. Windt's sport-related publications can be found here.
January 15, 2021: Injury surveillance in sport
| Presenter(s) | Role & Affiliation |
|---|---|
| Dr. Doug Richards | Sport Medicine Physician Associate Professor, Teaching stream, Faculty of Kinesiology and Physical Education, University of Toronto |
Keywords: injury surveillance
December 11, 2020: Automated Swimming Analytics Using Deep Neural Networks
| Presenter(s) | Role & Affiliation |
|---|---|
Dr. Ivan Bajic
|
Professor
Undergraduate Honours student
School of Engineering Science, Simon Fraser University |
Keywords: computer vision, competitive swimming, machine learning
Associated paper.
November 27, 2021: A Mathematical optimization framework for expansion draft decision making and analysis
| Presenter(s) | Role & Affiliation |
|---|---|
Dr. Tim Chan
Yusuf Shalaby |
Professor
Research assistant Industrial Engineering, University of Toronto |
Keywords: player valuation, drafting, optimization, hockey
Associated paper
November 13, 2020: Scoring rate estimation in European Soccer
| Presenter(s) | Role & Affiliation |
|---|---|
Dr. Alexandre Leblanc Robyn Ritchie
|
Professor
Department of Statistics, University of Manitoba |
Keywords: independent Poisson model, nonparametric estimation, soccer
October 16, 2020: Data Solutions Process in High-Performance Sport
| Presenter(s) | Role & Affiliation |
|---|---|
| Dr. Ming-Chang Tsai | Performance data scientist, Lead of Biomechanics and Performance Analysis, Canadian Sport Institute Pacific |
Keywords: data science, high-performance sport, snow sports, parasport
October 2, 2020: Canadian Tire Sports Analytics - Supporting Canadian National Sport Organizations with data and analytics
| Presenter(s) | Role & Affiliation |
|---|---|
| Justin Detlor | Manager of sports analytics, Canadian Tire Financial Services |
Keywords: data science, high-performance sport, Podium Pathway tracking, swimming, curling, track and field, basketball
September 18, 2020: Developing data workflows in high-performance sport
| Presenter(s) | Role & Affiliation |
|---|---|
| Phil Jevtovic | Lead Performance Analyst and Database Manager, Senior Men's National basketball team, Canada Basketball |
Keywords: data science, high-performance sport, basketball, performance analysis
August 20, 2020: Performance analytics in ice hockey
| Presenter(s) | Role & Affiliation |
|---|---|
Dr. Jonathan Tremblay Kevin Aizen |
Associate Professor
MSc student School of Kinesiology and Exercise Science, Université de Montréal |
Keywords: sport physiology, inertial measurement unit, load monitoring, strength testing, skating speed, machine learning, hockey
Associated paper
August 7, 2020: Working in Professional Sport - from SFU to the Big Leagues
| Presenter(s) | Role & Affiliation |
|---|---|
Sarah Bailey Dani Chu |
Manager Analytics & Data, Los Angeles Rams, NFL Quantitative Analyst, Seattle Kraken, NHL |
Keywords: data science, professional sport, football, hockey
July 24, 2020: Skater evaluation in hockey using regression-adjusted plus-minus
| Presenter(s) | Role & Affiliation |
|---|---|
| Dr. Michael Schuckers | Charles A. Dana Professor of Statistics, Director, Peterson Quantitative Resource Cente, St. Lawrence University (NY, USA) |
Keywords: player valuation, regression, hockey
June 26, 2020: In-game win probabilities for National Rugby League
| Presenter(s) | Role & Affiliation |
|---|---|
| Dr. Tim Swartz | Professor, Statistics and Actuarial Science, Simon Fraser University |
Keywords: win probabilities, functional data analysis, Bayesian statistics, rugby
June 12, 2020: Machine learning in sports analytics
| Presenter(s) | Role & Affiliation |
|---|---|
| Dr. Oliver Schulte | Professor, School of Computing Science, Simon Fraser University |
Keywords: machine learning, decision trees, causal inference, reinforcement learning, hockey, soccer
May 29, 2020: Is crossing the ball in soccer a good strategy?
| Presenter(s) | Role & Affiliation |
|---|---|
Aaron Danielson
|
Postdoctoral researcher
Statistics and Actuarial Science, Simon Fraser University |
Keywords: causal inference, propensity score matching, spatiotemporal player tracking data, soccer