Pat Howard is the new Executive General Manager of Strategy, Insights, and Innovation at the Australian Sports Commission. Pat has a background as an elite rugby player having played for the ACT Brumbies, Leicester Tigers and twenty caps for the Wallabies where he followed in the footsteps of both his grandfather and father.

After his playing career, Pat successfully transitioned into coaching where he took Leicester to a Premiership title in 2007, before returning to Australia for a highly successful career in business. He also undertook very high-profile sports administration positions with Rugby Australia and Cricket Australia. Just prior to taking this position at the Australian Sports Commission, Pat was CEO of Sports Tech company MSL Solutions

Lucy is a digital transformation and new industry development expert with CSIRO’s Data61 group. Her book, 'Building an Innovation Hotspot' outlines the policy levers used by governments and industry to support new industry development and local innovation. She is also a leading proponent of foresight, digital transformation, and innovation in the Asia Pacific region.

Lucy has been the leader and convenor of the Asia Pacific Foresight Group, she led the Vietnam's Future Digital Economy project, a major collaboration between CSIRO and Vietnam's Ministry of Science and Technology, and was one of just four Australian women named as GovInsider's Women in GovTech in Asia in 2018. She was also the inaugural speaker in the Australian Women in Blockchain series.

As a previous Queensland Government Smithsonian Fellow, Lucy has a special interest in policy leading to innovation hot-spots. Commissioned reports, keynote talks, and workshops conducted as part of the Data61 Insights team have advised government and industry on policy and actions to exploit new technology for productivity gains and local business development. This involves combining digital transformation policy with foresight techniques.

Prior to working at CSIRO's Data61 Lucy worked for 10 years in digital economy and productivity policy in the Queensland Government. Her PhD from the University of Queensland studied the impact of broadband on regional development.

Her professional interest lies in determining the geographic patterns of innovation, and what governments and businesses can do to effectively and cost-efficiently promote and exploit innovation.

Dr David T Martin has more than 30 years of experience working with Olympic and Professional coaches and athletes as an applied sport scientist and high-performance director. During this time, Dr Martin has published 120 peer-reviewed scientific publications investigating topics such as talent identification, training load, fatigue management, competition analysis, altitude training, and thermoregulation. At the Australian Institute of Sport, Dr Martin was a Senior Physiologist, a National Sport Science Coordinator for Cycling, and the inaugural Director of Performance for the AIS Combat Centre. More recently, Dr Martin worked in the NBA as the Director for Performance for the Philadelphia 76ers (2015-2019) and currently is Chief Scientist/Director of Performance for Performance Health Science a Bay Area start-up company focusing on health and fitness throughout decades of life. Dr. Martin continues to consult with high-performance sport organizations including the Queensland Academy of Sport

John is a research fellow in meta-science in sport at the University of Technology, Sydney and the AIS. John comes originally from an applied background in sports biomechanics and human movement research, before transitioning into analytical and data-science roles inside and outside of sport. He is interested in communication and knowledge transfer of different analytical concepts and processes between theoretical and applied areas of work. His research fellowship if focused on improving the quality of research and science conducted in sport, to help scientists and coaches make better decisions.

Kevin is the High Performance Manager at the South Australian Sports Institute. He is currently leading the technical design and development of two state-of-the-art sporting infrastructure projects: the new Australian Centre for Sports Aerodynamics (Wind Tunnel) and SASI's new High Performance Centre at Mile End, Adelaide. Both projects are scheduled to be completed in the next 12 months.

Kevin has over 27 years of international experience in high-performance sport coaching and leadership roles. He has served as Performance Director for the Australian Cycling Team and campaign cycling team lead for three Olympic cycles until 2016. In 2017, Kevin moved full-time back to Europe for five years to take on the role of Performance Director for the World Tour men's and women's team of Team Jayco-Alula (GreenEDGE), pursuing success in the world's biggest cycling events, including the Tour de France and Giro d'Italia.

Iryna has 2 masters degrees, the first one in neurophysiology and second one in coaching. She was a head coach of Ukrainian National Paralympic athletics team from 1995 to 2002.

Iryna came to Australia in 2003 to be closer to her mother Fira, herself an accomplished track and field coach of Australian athletes like Steve Solomon. Iryna was recruited by the Australian Institute of Sport to coach Paralympic Track and Field sprints and jumps athletes. At the 2004 Athens Paralympics, she coached athletes including Heath Francis, Lisa McIntosh, and Amy Winters who combined for nine medals.

At the 2008 Summer Paralympics, she was the coach of five Australian athletics competitors who won a combined for an incredible thirteen medals. Of note in 2008 was Iryna’s coaching of the great Evan O’Hanlon who would go on and win an incredible seven Paralympic medals over four Paralympic Games including five gold.

In 2012, Iryna coached Evan O’Hanlon and Scotty Reardon to Paralympic medals, and at Rio, Scotty broke through for a memorable Paralympic gold medal. At the Tokyo Paralympics, Iryna coached Vanessa Low to a gold medal, and James Turner to one gold and a silver.

Iryna is married to Paralympic Swim coach Yuriy Vdovychenko whose athletes have won 47 international medals.

Dr Drew has dedicated his career to improving the health and performance of Australians. Dr Drew has a Bachelor of Physiotherapy (Honours), Master of Clinical Epidemiology, PhD in Physiotherapy Contribution), Fellow of the Australasian Institute of Digital Health, and a Fellow of the Australian Sports Medicine Federation. Dr Drew is an adjunct Associate Professor at University of Canberra and has supervised 16 PhD and 1 Masters Students across physiotherapy, infectious disease, health economics, nutrition, biomechanics, sport science, epidemiology and sports performance.

Dr Drew commenced as Assistant Secretary Health Protection and Policy in Joint Health Command on 23 January 2023. This branch supports ADF capability through health surveillance, research, policy and senior technical/medical advice aimed at preserving the force to maintain capability while optimising members’ health over their life-course.

He was previously the Director of Health Research within Joint Health Command from 2022-2023. Prior to that he worked at the Australian Institute of Sport for over a decade in various roles including Senior Sports Physiotherapist, research manager, team physiotherapist, which included many overseas competitions and leading an innovations program to improve Australian Olympians’ health and performance. Some key outcomes of this innovation program included demonstrably reducing injury rates and retraining a workforce to deliver performance-driven prevention and healthcare services. Prior to his AIS role, he worked in Private Practice in Newcastle and worked as a Physiotherapist and Data Analyst for the Newcastle Knights.

Since 2018 Dr Drew has worked with the University of Canberra to develop the Master of Applied Clinical Epidemiology (Sport) program which was a world first degree program to give practitioners the skillset to prevent health problems in high performance environments. Dr Drew has over 75 peer-reviewed publications and presented over 60 conference presentations including invited and keynote presentations.  In 2018, his team at the AIS received an Australia Day Award for their work in improving athlete health and in 2015 he received an Australian Sports Commission CEO Commendation for services to research and capability. Dr Drew is married to Lauren and together they have two young children.

Martyn is a Performance Scientist at the Western Australian Institute of Sport, who specialises in the delivery of applied sports physiology for Olympic racing sports. Martyn has over 10 years of experience working in high performance sport across a variety of sport programs, and with a range of athletes from the development level to world class International.

He also has additional skills and training within the fields of applied sport nutrition and data science and is a strong contributor to the WAIS High Performance Sport Research Centre who conduct and supervise applied sports research in conjunction with University partners.

Martyn also has an established publication record across numerous topics, including the use of nutritional ergogenic aids, environmental interventions, competition strategies and/or technology development to optimize peak performance.

Dr. Andrew Walshe (Andy) is a globally recognized leader and expert in the field of elite human performance. For over 20 years the Australian native has been focused on the goal of “de-mystifying talent” by researching and training individuals and teams across a vast network of world-class programs in sport, culture, military and business settings.

Dr. Walshe is currently the Director of High Performance for Red Bull, where he works with hundreds of international athletes and cultural opinion leaders; supervises a team of industry-leading scientists, engineers, physicians and technologiests to develop and implement elite performance models. Dr. Walshe was the Performance Manager for Red Bull Stratos, leading the performance plan for Felix Baumgartner’s record-breaking jump to Earth from the stratosphere in 2012.

In 2013, Dr. Walshe was awarded ‘Outstanding Contribution to Performance Innovation Award’ at the prestigious Leader’s In Performance Conference.

Dr. Walshe founded “Glimpses”, the annual Human Potential Red Bull conference, which is now in its third year. This conference is a two-day symposium that brings together world-class talent from all areas of life to illuminate our understanding of human potential. The highly interactive symposium is designed to challenge our belief systems and shift the paradigm of what we think is possible.

Prior to joining Red Bull, Dr. Walshe designed a highly successful performance program for the U.S Olympic sky and snowboard teams, guiding their athletes to victories on the world stage. Dr. Walshe has also held Senior consulting roles at the Australian Institute of Sport, NSW Institute of Sport and Queensland Institute of Sport

Warwick Bowen is recognised both nationally and internationally for research at the interface of nanotechnology and quantum science; including bioimaging, nanophotonics, nanomechanics, quantum optomechanics and photonic/quantum sensing. He is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Physics, is Director of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence in Quantum Biotechnology, and leads the Quantum Optics Laboratory at UQ.

The research in Professor Bowen's lab spans from the very fundamental, e.g. how does quantum physics transition into our everyday world at large scales?, to applied, e.g. developing next generation sensors for medical diagnostics and navigation. To pursue this research, his lab works in close partnership with industry and uses state-of-the-art facilities for nanofabrication, nanoanalysis, precision optical measurement and deep cryogenic refrigeration available in-house or on campus at UQ.

Warrick has supervised more than thirty postgraduate students, who have been recognised with prizes such as Fulbright Scholarships, an Australian Youth Science Ambassadorship, a Springer PhD theses prize, the Queensland nomination for the Australian Institute of Physics Bragg Medal, the Australian Optical Society Postgraduate Student Prize and UQ Graduate of the Year.

Dr Katie Slattery is a lecturer at the School of Sport, Exercise and Rehabilitation, UTS. A UTS alumni who began her sports science career as a physiologist at the NSW Institute of Sport (NSWIS) and then supported the women's track endurance cycling squad to the 2016 Rio Olympics as a performance scientist.

Her job as a performance scientist with an Olympic team took her to the highest levels of sport.

“We were going for gold in the team pursuit. Using a performance-centred approach, I worked closely with the coaches to forecast the performance required to win and then developed strategies that were in line with the team ethos and philosophy to best prepare the athletes.”

“To do this, we leveraged the existing scientific literature and my own research to translate and apply these findings to our high-performance setting.”

It was also her job to quantify training and provide in-competition support to the team. This included race analysis and scouting of competitors’ performances to inform the coaches and athletes on how to best optimise our race strategy.

“The satisfaction is when all the pieces come together for the athletes. Looking back to when the team won the 2015 World Championships in a world record time, it was magic. Seeing the athletes in a state of flow. Knowing that they’ve done all the hard work, and were in the best possible state of readiness to perform.” Katie said.

Returning to the NSWIS as the coach of the endurance squad, she discovered the importance of holistic athlete development and the relational side of coaching.“If you look at the physical, technical, tactical and mental constructs in isolation you’re not getting a full picture on how well the athlete will perform,” she said.

Katie has now shifted her focus to concentrate on conducting research at UTS and teaching the next gen of sport and exercise practitioners. Taking her learnings as a sports scientist and a coach to explore how to optimise performance using both quantitative and qualitative research methods

Jamie is a sports physiologist specialising in performance and recovery optimisation working with current world record holding, Olympic, Paralympic, Commonwealth, and World champion athletes. He is passionate about developing next practice in the daily training and competition environments and influencing transformational change at a system level that will have a lasting performance impact over time. Jamie is in a unique position holding roles with three different organisations. He is currently the Lead Physiologist for the Australian Cycling Team, Training Insight Lead for the Swimming Australia High Performance Unit and Senior Physiologist at the South Australian Sports Institute. Jamie also holds an adjunct research position at the University of South Australia and was the 2020 Exercise and Sport Science Australia Accredited Sport Scientist of the year.

Dr Marion Mundt is a Research Fellow in the UWA Tech & Policy Lab at The University of Western Australia, working with the Australian Institute of Sport to use and validate machine learning techniques to estimate kinematic and kinetic motion parameters from standard two-dimensional video. She received her PhD in Sport Science from the German Sport University Cologne for the application of artificial intelligence to motion analysis using inertial sensors. In 2022, she received the Hans Gros Emerging Researcher Award from the International Society of Biomechanics in Sport for her work in ‘bridging the lab-to-field gap’.