CMSAC Football Analytics Workshop

Tyrel Stokes is a Staff Data Scientist at Teamworks Intelligence, where he leads the technical development of the company’s hockey analytics platform. His work focuses on modeling player- and puck-tracking data to better understand continuous-time sports. He earned his PhD in Statistics from McGill University, specializing in causal inference, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at NYU, where he developed machine learning and Bayesian spatiotemporal models and theory for applications in biostatistics/epidemiology. His applied work has spanned multiple sports, including hockey, basketball, and horse racing, with past projects involving possession value modeling and generative simulation frameworks built from tracking data.

Pavel is a Senior Deep Learning Engineer at SumerSports specializing in applying advanced neural network architectures to player tracking data for extracting player performance metrics. With expertise in transforming complex spatiotemporal data into actionable player evaluation frameworks, he is part of a team pioneering new approaches to quantify on-field performance. Prior to joining SumerSports, he spent a decade working in the field of speech & audio processing research, bringing cross-domain expertise in signal processing and deep learning to the field of football analytics.

Udit Ranasaria is a Senior Deep Learning Engineer at SūmerSports, where he develops creative deep-learning solutions for American football analytics, particularly in areas overlooked by teams. Recently he published a paper and open source repository applying Transformers to NFL tracking data that helped multiple winning projects in the 2025 Big Data Bowl. Before joining Sūmer, Ranasaria began his sports analytics journey as an Honorable Mention recipient in the 2020 Big Data Bowl before working in Football Research at the Cleveland Browns. He holds a Computer Science degree from Carnegie Mellon University. When he isn't thinking about modeling for football, he is taking recreational pickleball too seriously.

Quang Nguyen is a third-year PhD student in the Department of Statistics & Data Science at Carnegie Mellon University. During his PhD, Quang has worked on statistical modeling problems in complex settings such as tracking data in sports and social networks. Quang previously received his MS in Applied Statistics from Loyola University Chicago and BS in Mathematics and Data Science from Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio. He is a two-time NFL Big Data Bowl finalist, and a die-hard supporter of Manchester United.

Parker Fleming is an economist who serves as Head of Analytics for Blueprint Sports. His research focuses on designing and implementing systematic approaches to player evaluation and roster management for college athletic programs. Prior to Blueprint Sports, he consulted with college football teams on in-game strategy, talent identification and evaluation, and coaching searches. He received his PhD in Economics from Southern Methodist University, where he focused on application of causal microeconometric methods to real-world problems in economic growth, political economy, and the economics of religion.

As Director of Strategic Football Operations for the Dallas Cowboys, John Park leads strategic football efforts for the team, working closely with coaches, scouts, and front office staff to provide data-driven recommendations for team success. Park served in the same capacity with the Indianapolis Colts for seven seasons (2016-2023), where he was responsible for identifying, developing and deploying resources to support football operations. He previously worked in NFL Player Engagement (2016) and with Rutgers Football (2014-2015) in both player development and recruiting roles. Additionally, he currently serves on the High Performance Committee of USA Football and also the inaugural Combine Performance Advisory Committee for the NFL Combine. Before working in sports, Park served as a consultant for Alvarez & Marsal and PricewaterhouseCoopers while a member of the American Academy of Actuaries. Park earned his bachelor's degree in cultural anthropology from Duke University and his master's degree in actuarial science from Columbia University and has also been selected for the NFL Executive Leadership Program League of Leaders at Stanford University, the Ozzie Newsome GM Forum and the NFL QB Summit, and the NFL Front Office + GM Accelerator.

Ken Kang is a rising senior at Carnegie Mellon University, majoring in Artificial Intelligence. He’s part of Professor Chenyan Xiong’s research group, where he’s building machine-learning pipelines to analyze American football videos. Before that, Ken also has experience tackling deep-learning problems like cellular segmentation etc. He is also a sports enthusiast. He is a part of the CMU’s men’s basketball club team, and is interested in sports in general.