Work

What I do for work, in under 100 words

I am a data analytics specialist and researcher with a background in human performance and sport science.

I love working with people who are striving to achieve things that have never been done before, and I am fascinated by the challenge of helping individuals and teams to perform at their peak when it really matters.

My coding tools of choice are R, R Markdown / Quarto, Shiny, and SQL.

I am also comfortable with point-and-click data visualisation tools like Power BI and Tableau.

Work history

Current work

Data Scientist Ampersand Insights - Auckland, New Zealand 2024–present

Past roles

	Strategic Insights Analyst Callaghan Innovation - Auckland, New Zealand 2023–2025
	Head of Intelligence - Acting (2022-2023) Team Leader - Knowledge Edge (2019–2023) Senior Insights Researcher (2018–2019) High Performance Sport New Zealand - Auckland, New Zealand 2018–2023
	Guest Lecturer, Sessional Academic - School of Behavioural and Health Sciences Australian Catholic University - Melbourne, Australia 2015–2022
	Research Fellow (Joint Appointment) Geelong Cats Football Club & Deakin University - Geelong, Australia 2015–2017
	Mentor & Sports Science Consultant BioLAB: The Victorian Bioscience Education Centre - Geelong, Australia 2011–2017

Projects and contract work

I am proud and humbled to have worked with a range of sporting organisations and tertiary education providers as a contributor to their performance teams, scientific research, and teaching programmes:

In Australia

• Australian Institute of Sport Combat Centre
• Victorian Institute of Sport
• Deakin University
• University of Canberra
• Bowls Australia
• Nunawading Spectres Basketball Club

In New Zealand

• Rowing New Zealand
• Snow Sports New Zealand
• New Zealand Rugby
• Hockey New Zealand
• New Zealand Olympic Committee
• Paralympics New Zealand
• Auckland Rugby Union
• Auckland University of Technology

Open source contributions

• Creator of the R package wnblr, for retrieving women’s basketball data from the Women’s National Basketball League (Australia) and Tauihi Basketball (Aotearoa New Zealand). https://github.com/jacquietran/wnblr
• Contributor to the R package cricketdata, for retrieving international cricket data for men and women, Tests, ODIs, and T20s. http://pkg.robjhyndman.com/cricketdata/
• “Feel The Illinoise!”: A web app for making generative art with noise functions. Written in Shiny.

Education

Doctor of Philosophy
Thesis title: “Monitoring training loads and athlete wellness: Relationships with rowing performance”
PhD scholarship supported by Rowing Australia, the Australian Institute of Sport, and Deakin University
Deakin University | Degree conferred October 2015

Bachelor of Exercise & Sport Science (First Class Honours)
Thesis title: “Validation of accelerometer data in field team sports activities”
Deakin University | Degree conferred April 2010

Bachelor of Exercise & Sport Science
Major: Exercise Physiology
Deakin University | Degree conferred April 2009

Selected presentations and publications

You can find my Google Scholar profile here.

Invited talks and workshops

• “More data than we know what to do with! [Note: Women’s results not available.]”, presented at the 2022 Workshop Organised by the Monash Business Analytics Team (WOMBAT).
• “Data practices and data problems in performance sport”, presented at satRdays NZ (2020).
• “Reproducible reports in R Markdown”, presented for R-Ladies Auckland (2020).
• “A macro view of sports analytics” presented at the ACU High Performance Sport Summer Seminar (2019).
• “From insights to decisions: Knowledge sharing in sports analytics”, presented at the AUT SPRINZ S&C Pre-Conference on Sports Performance Analysis (2018).

Books and book chapters

• Bosch, T.A. & Tran, J. (2022). Data delivery and reporting. In D. French & Torres Ronda L. (Eds.), NSCA’s essentials of sport science (pp. 313-338). Human Kinetics.
• Robertson, S. & Tran, J. (2022). Learning. In D. Joyce & D. Lewindon (Eds.), High-performance training for sports (pp. 357-367). Human Kinetics.

Journal articles

On team sport performance analysis:

• Taylor, N., Gastin, P.B., Mills, O., & Tran, J. (2020). Network analysis of kick-in possession chains in elite Australian football. Journal of Sports Sciences, 38(9), 1053-1061. https://doi.org/10.1080/02640414.2020.1740490
• Young, C.M., Luo, W., Gastin, P.B., Tran, J. & Dwyer, D. (2019). Modelling match outcome in Australian football: Improved accuracy with large databases. International Journal of Computer Science in Sport, 18(1), 80-92. https://doi.org/10.2478/ijcss-2019-0005
• Young, C.M., Luo, W., Gastin, P.B., Tran, J., & Dwyer, D.B. (2019). The relationship between match performance indicators and outcome in Australian football. Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport, 22(4), 467-471. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsams.2018.09.235

On sleep and athletic performance:

• Roberts, S.S.H., Bowe, S.J., Evans, L., Tran, J., & Warmington, S. (2022). Does game-day circadian misalignment or environmental temperature influence team performance in the Australian Football League? An examination of historical data. Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport, 25(7), 593-598. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsams.2022.03.001
• Lalor, B.J., Tran, J., Halson, S.L., Kemp, J.G., & Cormack, S.J. (2021). Business class travel preserves sleep quality and quantity and minimizes jet lag during the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup. International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance, 16(10), 1490-1501. https://doi.org/10.1123/ijspp.2020-0689
• Lalor, B.J., Halson, S.L., Tran, J., Kemp, J.G., & Cormack, S.J. (2020). A complex relationship: sleep, external training load, and well-being in elite Australian footballers. International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance, 15(6), 777-787. https://doi.org/10.1123/ijspp.2019-0061
• Lalor, B.J., Halson, S.L., Tran, J., Kemp, J.G., & Cormack, S.J. (2018). No compromise of competition sleep compared with habitual sleep in elite Australian footballers. International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance, 13(1), 29-36. https://doi.org/10.1123/ijspp.2016-0776

On contributors to injury in elite sport:

• Hoffman, D.T., Dwyer, D.B., Tran, J., Clifton, P., & Gastin, P.B. (2019). Australian Football League injury characteristics differ between matches and training: A longitudinal analysis of changes in the setting, site, and time span from 1997 to 2016. Orthopaedic Journal of Sports Medicine, 7(4). https://doi.org/10.1177/2325967119837641