Dean’s Lecture Series & Reception “Game-Changers: Unleashing the Power of Sports Informatics in Athletics”

More on our panelists:

Damon Evans was named the Barry P. Gossett Director of Athletics for the University of Maryland on June 25, 2018. He oversees a department with 20 varsity sports and 500 student-athletes, a full-time staff of more than 200, and an annual budget of $120+ million. Evans’ philosophy of success for Maryland Athletics is based on the concept of “One Maryland,” a vision to unify the entire Maryland community to achieve unparalleled success in College Park. During Evans tenure at Maryland, the Terrapins have claimed 49 Big Ten Championships and Tournament titles, the third-most of any conference institution during that span. The Terps have captured seven National Championship since 2014.

Derek Willis is a Lecturer in Data and Computational Journalism at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland, where he teaches classes on obtaining, analyzing, and visualizing data in order to tell better stories. He previously worked at ProPublica, The New York Times, and The Washington Post. He teaches a sports data class in the fall and is a contributor to Her Hoop Stats, which provides statistical analysis of women’s college basketball. Find him online at https://thescoop.org/.

Erianne Weight is a Professor of Sport Administration who studies the pursuit of never-ending ascension and the intersection of sport and higher education. She is the Director of the Center for Research in Intercollegiate Athletics, Chair of the UNC Faculty Athletics Committee, and consultant for Collegiate Sports Associates. She earned her Ph.D. in Sport Marketing and Management from Indiana University, and her Master of Business Administration and B.S. in Exercise and Sport Science from the University of Utah, where she also competed as a heptathlete. She is a Research Fellow for the College Sport Research Institute, has published 3 books, over 100 refereed articles and book chapters, has consulted for over 30 organizations, and has given roughly 150 invited and refereed research presentations.

Ben Hoffman is the Senior Associate Director of Strength and Conditioning for Olympic Sports. He joined the University of Maryland in the spring of 2017 as an assistant strength and conditioning coach and oversees all aspects of strength and conditioning for men’s soccer and men’s lacrosse. He also leads the sports science initiative for the department, overseeing the use of sports technology, data collection, and reporting.

Chad Wells joined the Maryland football program in 2018 and currently serves as the Director of Football Technology. A graduate of the University of Iowa, Wells earned his degree in Management. He then earned his Master’s in Kinesiology from California State University, Long Beach in 2012. Wells’ career in football video started at the University of Southern California in 2010, where he spent two years working for the Trojan football team as a video assistant. He then served in the same role at the NFL level, working for the San Francisco 49ers from 2012-2014.  Wells returned to the college ranks in 2015 as he was named the Director of Football Video at the University of Illinois. He served in that role until joining the Terps in 2018. Wells lives in Laurel with is wife, Megan.

Eli Dross is a current senior information science major at the INFO College. As a Maryland native and huge sports fan, he has been an avid supporter of UMD sports for as long as he can remember. He is deeply passionate about the intersection of information science and sports science. As an information science student, he is very intrigued by all the different fields covered by information science, such as data science and data analytics, which are the main areas of interaction he has been involved in. Over the last school year as an intern/student analyst with UMD Athletics, he has used the skills he has learned through the information science program from various coding classes and statistical analytics classes to gain valuable insights into the practical applications of data science and data analytics in helping enhance athletic performance and strategy.