2022 Speakers
This page contains the list of speakers who will participate in our industry panels and research flash talks.
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John Abbamondi CEO, BSE Global; Alternate Governor, Brooklyn Nets MIT Alum SPEAKER BIO
As Chief Executive Officer, Abbamondi is responsible for leading the overall business strategy and operations for BSE Global, the parent company of the National Basketball Association’s Brooklyn Nets, Barclays Center, the Long Island Nets of the NBA G-League and Nets Gaming Crew of the NBA 2K League. He is charged with advancing the company’s existing sports, media and entertainment businesses as well as identifying and executing on new opportunities for growth. He also serves as Alternate Governor for the Brooklyn Nets. Abbamondi is a widely respected sports and entertainment industry veteran with deep experience across the National Basketball Association, the National Hockey League and Major League Baseball. Prior to joining BSE Global, he was Executive Vice President for Ticketing, Suites and Corporate Hospitality at The Madison Square Garden Company. He had previously served as Senior Vice President of Team Marketing and Business Operations at the NBA, where he was responsible for assisting NBA teams in growing their profitability through strategic consulting on all aspects of team business operations. Prior to joining the NBA, he spent eight years in MLB, including three seasons as the assistant general manager of the St. Louis Cardinals. Before beginning his career in sports, Abbamondi served nine years as a U.S. Navy flight officer and is a two-time recipient of the Navy Air Medal with 40 combat missions over Iraq. He earned a Bachelor of Science in political science from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Master of Business Administration from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business. Abbamondi and his wife Sarah currently reside in Brooklyn. |
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Navid Azizan Assistant Professor, MIT Mechanical Engineering and IDSS SPEAKER BIO
Dr. Navid Azizan is a tenure-track Assistant Professor at MIT, with dual appointments in MechE and IDSS. His research interests broadly lie in machine learning and artificial intelligence, optimization, dynamical systems and control, and network science. His research lab focuses on various aspects of enabling large-scale intelligent systems, with an emphasis on principled learning and optimization algorithms, with applications in autonomous systems and smart grids. Prior to MIT, he was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford University. He obtained his PhD in Computing and Mathematical Sciences (CMS) from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in 2020, his MSc from the University of Southern California in 2015, and his BSc from Sharif University of Technology in 2013. Additionally, he was a research scientist intern at Google DeepMind in 2019. His work has been recognized by several awards, including the 2020 Information Theory and Applications (ITA) Gold Graduation Award and the 2016 ACM GreenMetrics Best Student Paper Award. He was named an Amazon Fellow in Artificial Intelligence in 2017 and a PIMCO Fellow in Data Science in 2018. |
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Ramzi BenSaid President, TTY Analytics & Consulting SPEAKER BIO
Ramzi is President of TTY Analytics & Consulting, a data science consulting company focused on the sports data ecosystem. He spent five years working for Google Cloud, supporting various different sports partners such as the Golden State Warriors, Major League Baseball, the NCAA, the MIT Sports Lab & ShotTracker with strategy and implementation of data initiatives. With over a decade in the sports data industry, he has experience with both game & business data across all elements of the data funnel from collection & engineering through modeling & presentation. Ramzi is a graduate of Cornell University, previously worked at Bloomberg Sports and is a washed up athlete. |
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Brian Bilello President, New England Revolution MIT Alum SPEAKER BIO
As President of the New England Revolution, Brian Bilello reports directly to the Kraft family and oversees all aspects of the club’s business and soccer operations. He is responsible for establishing the club’s strategic vision and fostering its implementation. Working closely with the Kraft family to represent the Revolution in league matters, Bilello has served on several Major League Soccer and Soccer United Marketing committees, including the Business Development Committee, On-Field Technical Sub-Committee, Board of Governors, On-Field Competition Committee, Digital Commerce Task Force, and Chief Business Officers group. During his 19-year tenure with the club, the Revolution have been to MLS Cup four times (2005, 2006, 2007, and 2014) and have won the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup (2007) and the North American SuperLiga (2008). Entering 2022, the club is looking to build on last year’s record setting 73 point season, when the captured their first ever Supporters’ Shield. Ahead of the 2020 season, Bilello oversaw the development and construction of the new Revolution Training Center in Foxborough, the home of the Revolution first team, Revolution II USL League One side, and Revolution Academy. The $35-million facility is among the best in all of MLS and includes a state-of-the-art headquarters and four professional-grade fields. Prior to joining the club, Bilello was a Revolution season ticket holder, giving him an inside track on the team’s fan experience. He enjoys working directly with supporters to ensure the club continues to prioritize their experience and every touch point they have with the club. Additionally, Bilello is leading the campaign to bring the FIFA World Cup™ to New England as the President of Boston Soccer 2026. His efforts resulted in Boston being selected as an official Candidate Host City and he continues working closely with the United Bid to position Boston to be a selected host city in 2026. Bilello has over a decade of senior leadership and strategic management in professional sports. He joined Kraft Sports & Entertainment in 2003 and served the Revolution, the New England Patriots, Boston Uprising, and Gillette Stadium in various operational and strategic roles. As Director of Quality and Operational Control, he worked to improve the fan experience across all areas of Gillette Stadium. He has also overseen the stadium’s concessions and retail operations, and provided strategic advice to the Kraft family on a number of issues related to their sports ventures, in particular, soccer, MLS, and the Revolution. Bilello’s experience in professional sports started prior to landing in Foxborough while working as a management consultant for Bain & Company. During his tenure with the company, he worked with clients across a variety of functions, including sports, retail, consumer products, and entertainment industries in Bain & Company’s Boston and San Francisco offices. An avid soccer player himself, Bilello played varsity soccer at MIT while studying engineering and economics, and continues to play and coach in his free time. He lives in Massachusetts with his wife, Vanessa, and two daughters. He is a member of the Board of Directors for Boston Scores, serves on Cradles 2 Crayons’ Corporate Advisory Council, and was named to Boston Business Journal’s “40 Under 40” in September 2012. |
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Johsan Billingham Research Manager for the Football Technology Innovation Department, FIFA SPEAKER BIO
A research Manager for the Football Technology Innovation Department at FIFA. He has a master’s degree in Sports Engineering from Sheffield Hallam University in the UK, and has previously worked as a Goal Line Technology Systems Engineer for Hawk Eye in the Premier League. Since joining the FIFA in 2015, he has worked on a wide variety of research and innovation projects; developing a global professional standard for Electronic Performance Tracking Systems (EPTS); leading a 4-year research project into the aerodynamics of footballs, and implementing VAR amongst other technologies as a Technology & Innovation Venue Manager at the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia. Johsan will be heavily involved in leading the upcoming 4 years preparing for the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar. This phase is an incredible opportunity to use science, research and innovation to improve football for the layers, the teams and the fans. |
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Christina Chase Lecturer, MIT Mechanical Engineering; Co-Founder & Managing Director, MIT Sports Lab SPEAKER BIO
Christina Chase is a Lecturer at MIT in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. In 2015, she co-founded the MIT Sports Lab with Prof. Anette “Peko” Hosoi and serves as its Managing Director. Prior to this she was the first Entrepreneur in Residence at MIT through the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship. Christina has helped hundreds of teams go from concept to company. In 2013, she was named one of the 25 Most Influential Women in the Boston Tech Community and in 2014, Mashable named her one of the 15 People Shaping Boston’s Tech Scene. In a past life, Christina was a cyclist where she was one of 12 women selected by the US Cycling Federation to train at the US Olympic Training Center. She has taught downhill skiing in Colorado, summited six of Colorado’s 14-ers across seasons, and her latest sport is kiteboarding. Christina is a Techstars mentor and serves on the Board of the MIT Enterprise Forum, is a judge for the SXSW Accelerator Competition and former Advisory Board member. |
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Hoby Darling Co-Founder & Partner, Liminal Collective; President, Logitech's Sports & Human Performance Division SPEAKER BIO
Hoby Darling has spent his career at the intersection of business, innovation, technology, and human performance. He currently serves as Co-Founder & Partner of Liminal Collective, a high performance advisory organization partnering with some of the world’s most elite performers across sports, national security, creativity, and medicine. He also serves as President of Logitech's Sports & Human Performance Division. Prior to that he served as an executive at Nike and CEO of Skullcandy/Astro Gaming. He serves on the board and in advisory capacities to multiple organizations in the sports, health, and performance space including Nike Sports Camps, FitLab Ventures, Momentous Human Performance, RPM Fitness, and Ragnar Relays. He has graduate degrees from the University of California at Berkeley, Columbia University in New York, and Northwestern University. He has been featured in leading publications, books and media ranging from the Wall Street Journal, California Business Journal and CNBC to MTV and Thrive around topics including performance, business, sports, culture and innovation. He is a certified Crossfit Coach and personal trainer, and has completed multiple endurance and adventure races ranging from Ironman to Spartan Ultra obstacle races. He and his wife and two daughters reside in Park City, Utah. |
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Nicolas Evans Head of Football Research & Standards, FIFA SPEAKER BIO
Nicolas is the Head of Football Research & Standards within FIFA’s Technical Innovation Department. In this role he oversees the entire standards creation process from definition of needs, research design and execution to implementation as global standards for football stakeholders. He leads a multi-disciplinary team consisting of engineers, data scientists and industry experts that works with more than 150 stakeholders on a daily basis. Nicolas has championed the role of science in sport following two Master’s degrees in International Affairs and Governance from the University of St. Gallen and a summa cum laude degree in Finance & Strategy at the Institut d’Etudes Politique de Paris. Applying research methods and his understanding of institutional dynamics has been key to forging successful partnerships with industry, research and football stakeholders to improve the game of football using data-driven decision-making processes. Besides family, Nicolas’ hobbies include a variety of sports and long-distance running. |
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Sarah Fay Graduate Researcher, MIT Sports Lab SPEAKER BIO
Sarah is a graduate student working with Peko Hosoi. Her current project is focused on the modeling the biomechanics of running for designing running shoes (in collaboration with adidas). In the past, she's worked on optimizing racket weight distribution for power hitting. She played field hockey and squash at MIT as an undergraduate and serves as an assistant coach of the MIT field hockey team. |
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Sam Feder Vice President, New York Islanders MIT Alum SPEAKER BIO
Sam is the Vice President at New York Hockey Holdings, the ownership group of the New York Islanders hockey club. In his role, he oversees strategy and analytics for the organization. Prior to joining the Islanders, Sam received his MBA from MIT and worked for 3 years at McKinsey & Company in their sports practice. |
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Mike Fitzgerald Assistant GM & Vice President of Research and Development, Arizona Diamondbacks MIT Alum SPEAKER BIO
Mike Fitzgerald enters his sixth season with the D-backs and second as Assistant GM & Vice President of Research & Development. In his role, Fitzgerald works with the R&D staff to supplement other areas of baseball operations, with the goal of enabling the most informed decisions possible. Fitzgerald joined the D-backs following five seasons and three postseason appearances with the Pittsburgh Pirates where he served as a quantitative analyst involved in player evaluation and roster construction. He also interacted directly with the coaching staff, providing input on defensive positioning, batting order optimization and identifying favorable matchups. Prior to joining the Pirates, Fitzgerald spent two years in ESPN’s technology innovation department and two years with TrackMan, the radar technology company that captures ball flight and trajectory. While attending Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the Wilmington, Mass., native spent two years as an intern in the Boston Celtics’ basketball operations department. He graduated in 2011 with a degree in mathematics and was a captain of the football team. He resides in Scottsdale with his wife, Lesley. |
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Andy Harland Professor of Sports Technology & Associate Dean for Enterprise, Loughborough University SPEAKER BIO
Professor Harland is active in research across a broad range of topics related to sport, including measurement and instrumentation in sport, product design and development, injury prevention and simulation. A number of projects have been concerned with sports footwear, apparel, protective gear and hard-goods, with particular focus on a wide range of hollow and solid sports balls. He has supervised over 20 PhD students. Professor Harland’s research in soccer balls has been applied by adidas in tournament balls used in FIFA world cups since 2006 and UEFA European Championships since 2004 and his research in cricket helmet impacts underpinned the revision of the British Standard 7928:2013; Specification for Head Protection for Cricketers. Professor Harland has partnered with a wide range of industrial, commercial and charitable bodies, including adidas, FIFA, England and Wales Cricket Board, International Cricket Council, BISFed and FIH. Professor Harland has also supported a number of start-up businesses including Alcuris, Incus, Nymbl and Shot Scope and is keen to support ideas through to commercialisation. |
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Mark Henderson Senior Engineering Director for the Innovation Team, Adidas SPEAKER BIO
Mark Henderson has worked in engineering and innovation with adidas for 20+ years. He is currently a Senior Engineering Director for the Innovation Team, where he leads a team of talented engineers working 3-7 years out on game changing ideas. Topics range from high performance product and athlete experiences to the future of manufacturing and sustainability. He has worked on or directed the engineering of several successful adidas technologies including: adidas 1, the world’s first intelligent shoe; adidas prime SP, the lightest sprint spike ever, and most recently the industry changing 4D FWD, a high-performance 3D-printed running shoe. Mark is originally from Tauranga, New Zealand and completed his honors degree in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Canterbury. |
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Anette (Peko) Hosoi Associate Dean, MIT School of Engineering; Neil and Jane Pappalardo Professor, MIT Mechanical Engineering; Co-founder, MIT Sports Lab SPEAKER BIO
Anette “Peko” Hosoi is the Associate Dean of the MIT School of Engineering, the Neil and Jane Pappalardo Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Professor of Mathematics. Her research contributions lie at the junction of nonlinear hydrodynamics, biomechanics, and bio-inspired design. A common theme in her work is the fundamental study of shape, kinematic, and rheological optimization of biological systems with applications to the emergent field of soft robotics. More recently, she has turned her attention to problems that lie intersection of biomechanics, applied mathematics, and sports. She is the co-founder of the MIT Sports Lab which connects the MIT community with pro-teams and industry partners to address data and engineering challenges that lie within the sports domain. She has received numerous awards including the APS Stanley Corrsin Award, the Bose Award for Excellence in Teaching, and the Jacob P. Den Hartog Distinguished Educator Award. She is a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS), a Radcliffe Institute Fellow, and a MacVicar Faculty Fellow. |
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Spencer Hylen Graduate Researcher, MIT Sports Lab SPEAKER BIO
Spencer Hylen is a master’s student at MIT studying computer science. He is passionate about using analytics to generate actionable results and guide high-level strategic thinking. Spencer’s thesis research focuses on dynamic ticket pricing for sports events, and he has previously been the technical lead on a project for FIFA that used tracking data to detect soccer events. Spencer has also interned for firms in private equity, financial consulting, and cybersecurity. He was also an outside linebacker for the MIT varsity football team. He will be joining Altamont Capital Partners full-time upon completion of his master's degree in 2022. |
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Mathias Kolle Associate Professor, MIT Mechincal Engineering SPEAKER BIO
Mathias and his research group focus their efforts on the identification of unique biological light manipulation concepts and the development of bio-inspired, adaptive, and actively tunable optical materials. Mathias joined the faculty of MIT in 2013. Prior to that, he held a Feodor Lynen research fellowship of the Alexander von Humboldt - Foundation for postdoctoral studies at Harvard University, where his research was focused on bio-inspired photonics, bio-imaging and optical spectroscopy. He earned his degree in physics from the Saarland University in Germany and the University of Lorraine (formerly Henri Poincaré University) in France in 2006. Mathias then continued his graduate studies at the University of Cambridge, UK at the Cavendish Laboratories, where he received his PhD in 2010. His favorite sports are inline skating, biking, and water sports, including sailing and free-diving. |
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Dan Nicolella Institute Engineer, Southwest Research Institute SPEAKER BIO
Dr. Nicolella is an Institute Engineer (highest technical position) and manager of the Musculoskeletal Biomechanics, Computational Materials and Integrity, and Computational Lifing Software groups at Southwest Research Institute. He has over 30 years of experience in basic and applied research programs. He has a broad background in engineering with specific focus on biomechanics, computational modeling, uncertainty quantification and probabilistic analysis, micromechanics, data analytics and machine learning, and experimental methods and characterization. He has led programs in diverse areas such as probabilistic computational mechanics and simulation, bone and joint mechanics, bone cell mechanotransduction, human motion capture and biomechanics, advanced materials characterization, micromechanics, engineering mechanics, robotics, advanced technology development. Dr. Nicolella has developed a lab at Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) that includes the application of advanced experimental and computational methods to investigate the performance of the human body at multiple length scales from the nano-level to the whole-body level. He has developed and implemented probabilistic finite element and statistical shape modeling techniques in a wide variety of biomedical and non-biomedical applications and used these methods to analyze clinical datasets from both the Osteoporotic Fractures in Men (MrOS) Study and the Osteoarthritis Initiative (OAI) epidemiological studies. These investigations have demonstrated that there are complex, but quantifiable, anatomical and trait differences between individuals that are at risk compared to not at risk for injury and disease. Throughout his career, Dr. Nicolella has led and significantly contributed to research programs focused on understanding sex differences in the development and progression of knee osteoarthritis, experimental and computational characterization of bone microdamage, and the development and analysis of scaffolds for use in tissue engineering. He has also made significant contributions on diverse programs including the computational modeling and simulation of corroded pipelines to predict oil spills (the Alaska Pipeline), the design and analysis of fabric based composite materials, and experimental and computational characterization of nanoparticle based composite materials as a replacement for amalgam based dental materials. Currently, Dr. Nicolella is the co-lead of the SwRI Human Performance Initiative. Under this program, the SwRI team has developed an advanced markerless biomechanics system that enables the characterization and analysis of human performance using off the shelf video cameras and advanced artificial intelligence processing engines. He also leads a team that is developing an advanced, multi-scale human digital twin for the US Department of Defense. The human digital twin is being developed for applications of force protection, injury prediction and mitigation, and human performance optimization. Dr. Nicolella is a member of the SwRI Advisory Committee for Research, an adjoint professor in the Biomedical Engineering Department at the University of Texas at San Antonio, faculty member of the Joint UTSA-UTHSCSA Biomedical Engineering Graduate program, member of the UTSA Biomedical Engineering Advisory Board, and member of the NASA Finite Element Modeling Task Group for Bone Strength. |
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Steve Palmer Head of Data Solutions, Premier League SPEAKER BIO
The only Premier League footballer to hold a Cambridge University Degree, a highly successful 16 year playing career comprising nearly 600 first team games was complemented initially by seven years coaching experience within the Academy system. A move to the Premier League saw the three year implementation of a ground breaking Athlete & Club Management System. More recently responsibilities run on two strands. Firstly developing a governed Data Strategy based on Business Intelligence Tool to facilitate trusted data to be processed, visualised and shared across the PL Organisation, to clubs and to third party agencies Second ensuring cutting edge Performance-based data solutions are provided to clubs including GLT, VAR, Player Tracking Data, Event Data, Automated Camera feeds, Live & Post-Match Video and Data provision to Analyst. |
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Sonia Raman Assistant Coach, Memphis Grizzlies SPEAKER BIO
Sonia Raman enters her second season with the Memphis Grizzlies as an assistant coach under head coach Taylor Jenkins. Raman previously served 12 seasons (2008-20) as the head women’s basketball coach at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where she led the Engineers to the program’s first two New England Women’s and Men’s Athletic Conference (NEWMAC) championships (2018, 2019) and the 2020 championship game. MIT enjoyed unprecedented success under Raman, whose tenure produced two NCAA Tournament berths and a 91-45 record (.669) over her final five seasons. In September 2017, Raman was selected to serve a two-year term on the Coaches Council for the Alliance of Women Coaches, dedicated to leading the field of women coaches at all levels by providing support, resources, events and programs which address the needs and interests of its members. Prior to her arrival in Cambridge, Raman served six seasons (2002-08) as the top assistant coach at Wellesley College, where she scouted opponents, assisted with practice and game planning, managed individual player skill and leadership development and served as the Blue’s primary recruiter. Raman began her intercollegiate coaching career with a two-year stint as an assistant coach at her alma mater, Tufts University. A four-year player and a captain for the Jumbos, she graduated in 1996 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in International Relations. Raman went on to receive a Juris Doctor from Boston College Law School in 2001. |
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Jeremy Rogalski Director of Hockey Analytics, Boston Bruins SPEAKER BIO
Jeremy Rogalski is in his thirteenth season with the Bruins organization, and fifth in the position of Director of Hockey Analytics. The West Springfield, MA native utilizes statistical data and tools to support the hockey operations, coaching, and amateur scouting staffs. A 2009 graduate of Bates College with a degree in Economics, he joined the Bruins in November 2009 as the team's Assistant to Hockey Administration, and was transitioned to Video Analyst in 2010. After five seasons in that capacity, he was transitioned to Hockey Operations Assistant, a position he held for two years. He was named to his current position on September 13, 2017. Prior to joining the Bruins, Rogalski had previously held internships with the New England Patriots in their Marketing and Football Operations Department. Rogalski lives in Duxbury with his wife, Melissa. |
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Kase Saylor Manager of the Decision Technologies Section, Southwest Research Institute SPEAKER BIO
Kase Saylor leads a diverse team of engineers and analysts as the manager of the Decision Technologies Section at Southwest Research Institute. He is an electrical engineer with a focus in digital signal processing, embedded networks, and systems engineering and is an experienced project manager with nearly two decades of project management experience. He has a strong technical background in the development of integrated sensor systems and large-scale simulation systems. As the co-lead of the SwRI Human Performance Initiative, he directs research in quantifying and optimizing human performance through new and novel techniques and technologies. Mr. Saylor co-leads the development of a novel technology that provides a complete, subject-specific, model-driven biomechanical motion analysis technology that uses commercially available cameras. This technology, referred to as markerless biomechanics, goes beyond the traditional markerless motion capture (MOCAP) system; rather than tracking locations of joint centers in 3D space, the system instead predicts a complete biomechanical state based on inverse kinematics (i.e., joint forces and moments). In addition to markerless biomechanics, Mr. Saylor leads research efforts in the use of eyes and ears to measure cognitive load and detect potential traumatic brain injuries. Mr. Saylor successfully led and managed a U.S. Army network-based communication open standards initiative. This initiative provides for interoperability between Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) systems. He continues to support Department of Defense open standards initiatives as a subject matter expert. Prior to joining Southwest Research Institute, Mr. Saylor served for five years as a biomedical equipment technician in the U.S. Army. He graduated the U.S. Army Medical Equipment Repairman course in the top five percent of his class and received numerous awards for his performance while on active duty. Prior to active duty, he served in the Oregon Army National Guard as an infantryman. |
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Devavrat Shah Andrew (1956) and Erna Viterbi Professor, MIT EECS SPEAKER BIO
Devavrat Shah is Andrew (1956) and Erna Viterbi Professor with the department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is the founding director of Statistics and Data Science at MIT. He is also a member of IDSS, LIDS, CSAIL and ORC at MIT. He co-founded Celect, Inc. (now part of Nike) in 2013 to help retailers decide what to put where by accurately predicting demand using omni-channel data. He is a co-founder and CTO of IkigaiLabs with the mission to build self-driving organizations by enabling data-driven operations with human-in-the-loop. His research focuses on statistical inference and stochastic networks. His contributions span a variety of areas including resource allocation in communications networks, inference and learning on graphical models, algorithms for social data processing including ranking, recommendations and crowdsourcing and more recently causal inference. He has made foundational contributions to the development of “gossip” protocols and “message-passing” algorithms for statistical inference which have been the building blocks of modern distributed data processing systems.His work spans a range of areas across electrical engineering, computer science and operations research. His work has received broad recognition, including prize paper awards in Machine Learning, Operations Research and Computer Science, and career prizes including 2010 Erlang prize from the INFORMS Applied Probability Society, awarded bi-annually to a young researcher who has made outstanding contributions to applied probability. He is a distinguished alumni of his alma mater IIT Bombay from where he graduate with the honor of President of India Gold Medal. His work has been covered in popular press including NY Times, Forbes, Wired and Reddit. |
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Ben Shields Senior Lecturer, MIT Sloan School of Management SPEAKER BIO
Ben Shields is a Senior Lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management. His work as a teacher, researcher, and practitioner focuses on digital transformation in the sports, media, and entertainment industries. He teaches a number of courses in the graduate programs at MIT Sloan, including Sports Strategy and Analytics, Social Media Management, and Communication for Leaders. He is the author or co-author of three books, Social Media Management: Persuasion in Networked Culture (Oxford University Press, 2016), The Sports Strategist: Developing Leaders for a High Performance Industry (Oxford University Press, 2015), and The Elusive Fan: Reinventing Sports in a Crowded Marketplace (McGraw-Hill, 2006). He has also coauthored MIT Sloan case studies on Formula 1 and the National Women’s Soccer League. Prior to MIT he served as the Director of Social Media and Marketing at ESPN. He holds a BS and MA in communication studies and a PhD in media, technology, and society, all from Northwestern University. |
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Lavender Tessemer Graduate Researcher, MIT Self-Assembly Lab SPEAKER BIO
Lavender Tessmer is a PhD student in Design and Computation at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where her research explores mass customization in design and textiles. Her current work investigates design-to-fabrication workflows for textile applications in garments and architectural structures. As a Research Assistant at the MIT Self-Assembly Lab, she developed climate-responsive textiles, adaptable garments, and custom-made fibers. She has taught design studios in digital fabrication at Washington University in St. Louis and MIT, and her recent design work has been exhibited at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis and Seaport Common in Boston, MA. |
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Skylar Tibbits Associate Professor of Design Research, MIT Architecture; Co-director & Founder, MIT Self-Assembly Lab MIT Alum SPEAKER BIO
Skylar Tibbits is a co-director and founder of the Self-Assembly Lab housed at MIT’s International Design Center. The Self-Assembly Lab focuses on self-assembly and programmable material technologies for novel manufacturing, products and construction processes. Skylar is an Associate Professor of Design Research in the Department of Architecture where he teaches graduate and undergraduate design studios and coordinate's MIT's Design Minor and Design Major programs. Skylar was recently named R&D Magazine's 2015 Innovator of the Year, 2015 National Geographic Emerging Explorer, 2014 Inaugural WIRED Fellow, 2014 Gifted Citizen, 2013 Fast Company Innovation by Design Award, 2013 Architectural League Prize, The Next Idea Award at Ars Electronica 2013, Visionary Innovation Award at the Manufacturing Leadership Summit, 2012 TED Senior Fellow and was named a Revolutionary Mind in SEED Magazine’s 2008 Design Issue. Previously, he has worked at a number of renowned design offices including: Zaha Hadid Architects, Asymptote Architecture and Point b Design. He has designed and built large-scale installations at galleries around the world, has been published extensively in outlets such as the New York Times, Wired, Nature, Fast Company as well as various peer-reviewed journals and books. Skylar has a Professional Degree in Architecture and minor in experimental computation from Philadelphia University. Continuing his education at MIT, he received a Master of Science in Design Computation and a Master of Science in Computer Science under the guidance of; Patrick Winston, Terry Knight, Erik Demaine and Neil Gershenfeld. Initiated in 2007, Skylar Tibbits is also the founder and principal of a multidisciplinary design practice, SJET LLC. |
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Ferran Vidal-Codina Research Scientist and Instructor, MIT Sports Lab MIT Alum SPEAKER BIO
Ferran Vidal-Codina is a research scientist in the MIT Sports Lab. He is currently spearheading the MIT-FIFA collaboration, with a focus on developing algorithms and methodology to address some of the current challenges and limitations that FIFA faces for automatic data collection. Prior to that, Ferran came to MIT in 2011, supported by a La Caixa fellowship, to complete a S.M. in Computation for Design and Optimization, and in 2017 earned the Ph.D. in Computational Science and Engineering. His Ph.D. research focused on developing numerical methods to simulate the interaction of electromagnetic waves with metals at the nanoscale, a work he continued for two years as a postdoctoral associate in the Aero Astro department. Besides science, Ferran’s main interests are in soccer and traveling. |
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Evan Wasch Executive Vice President of Basketball Strategy & Analytics, NBA MIT Alum SPEAKER BIO
As Executive Vice President of Basketball Strategy & Analytics at the NBA, Evan Wasch oversees data and strategy for all on-court activities, including game tracking, player analytics, and referee performance. Wasch also focuses on strategic initiatives targeted at innovating and improving the NBA game, such as scheduling, competition issues, and technological enhancements. Since joining the NBA in 2011, Wasch has been a significant contributor across a range of key league business initiatives, including the modifications to the Draft Lottery and the design and execution of the groundbreaking Play-In Tournament, which was initially implemented during the 2020 NBA Restart. He has also contributed to the development and evolution of the NBA’s revenue sharing plan and the negotiation of the league’s national media contract renewals. Prior to joining the NBA, Wasch received an M.B.A. from the MIT Sloan School of Management, where he served as a co-lead of the fifth edition of the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference. He currently serves on the conference’s Alumni Board. Wasch started his career at Marakon, a boutique strategy firm based in New York, where he spent four years as a management consultant working in the pharmaceutical, industrials, and defense industries. Wasch holds a Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences from Northwestern University. He resides in New York with his wife and two daughters. |
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