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Team
Head of the Department
Pascal Bauer
Juniorprofessor (PhD)
Since 2019, I have been providing evidence to support decision-making by sports experts. With a background in mathematics and computer science, I gained industry experience as a Data Scientist at Fraunhofer IESE. In 2019, I joined the German Football Association (DFB) as a Data Scientist, where I now lead the Data Analytics and Research Department. I hold a PhD from Tübingen University and gained experience as a part-time data scientist at Zelus Analytics. I also hold a UEFA A-level coaching license and have 10 years of experience in semi-professional football (soccer).
In October 2024, I returned to my alma mater to establish the Chair of Sports Analytics at Saarland University, while still holding my position at the DFB.
Research Associates and PhD Candidates
Luis Holzhauer
Research Associate/ PhD Candidate (M.Sc.)
I did my Bachelors Degree in Human Movement in Sports and Exercise at the University of Münster. Then, I moved to Saarland University to study High Performance Sport, which sparked my deep interest in data, statistics, and coding. For three years, I worked as a student assistant, gaining practical research experience in systematic reviews, physiology, biomechanics, and neuro-motor psychology. At the moment I have a focus in tennis analytics but looking to broaden my scope across sports. In my PhD research I am looking into developing in-game win probability models across various sports. My goal is to apply quantitative analysis to better understand and predict of sports competitions.
Abdelrahman Abdelsamad
Research Associate/ PhD Candidate (M.Eng)
My research is centered on building intelligent analytics systems to model team and player strength in sports. I aim to develop robust AI solutions that translate AI into actionable insights. In my master's thesis I created a novel football player tracking system with occlusion handling and trajectory correction. This foundation in interpreting complex human motion is further strengthened by my background in biomedical engineering, including my work on intention decoding for upper-limb prostheses. My goal is to leverage advanced data science and neural networks to push the boundaries of sports performance evaluation and strategic analysis.
Guangze Zhang
Research Assistant/ PhD Candidate (M. MPhil.)
With a background in sports engineering, I support various research projects in sports analytics, as well as teaching activities at the chair.
Besides, I currently work on my PhD project, focusing on Digital Support for Return-to-Play Decisions in Football at the institute of Sport and Preventive Medicine (Saarland University & University of Groningen & DFB).