Data science course partners with sports metrics giant Trackman

Eastern’s Master of Science in Applied Data Science program recently made a meaningful addition to its roster of sponsors, providing students an entrée into sports analytics. Titled “DSC 509: Data Science Practicum,” the course features a partnership with Trackman, a leading sports metrics company.

Taught by accounting and business information systems Professor Niki Kunene, the course enables students to analyze data from Trackman’s collegiate baseball data repository.

“Students use Trackman’s NCAA player tracking data to analyze baserunning and defensive fielding,” wrote Morty Bouchard ’11, senior manager of pro baseball and data production at Trackman, who spearheaded the collaboration along with Kunene.

Bouchard hopes to, along with Kunene and her students, develop an innovative model for tracking athleticism in collegiate baseball players. “The primary goal is to develop a scalable ‘first step athleticism index’ that measures reaction time and change-of-direction efficiency — key indicators of athleticism that go beyond traditional top-end speed metrics,” he wrote.

The course has run twice — first in summer 2025, then this past spring, with students Chase Soulagnet, Katelyn Herbert, and Matthew Fitzsimons being the first to analyze Trackman’s baseball data as part of the collaboration.

Along with the spring’s fresh initiative with Trackman, Kunene maintains an expansive roster of sponsors for her courses, including the Windham Board of Finance, Daly Analytics, and CTData Collaborative, as well as Eastern’s College of Business and Information Technology Services.

Kunene was intentional in choosing a sponsor in sports, believing that partnering with Trackman was an opportunity to pique students’ interest and cultivate a “multidimensional” learning environment. “I thought that was an interesting dimension to the portfolio of sponsors that we had,” she said. “Sports are entertainment.”

A former soccer goaltender, Kunene made sure students would have the opportunity to analyze their choice of offensive — in this case, baserunning — or defensive baseball data. “If you talk to me about soccer, I'm interested in the defensive side of the game, so students had a choice to do it from (either an offensive or defensive) perspective,” she said.

While the data analyzed is extracted from sports, Kunene says that the skills and experience students gain are transferable across industries. She told her students, “You'll be trying to create a metric that tells you something about a player ... but you could also be helping the company create a workflow that helps them quickly analyze incoming data.”

According to Kunene, students also stand to gain soft skills and experience in organizational structures: “They have to interact with the sponsor — communicating on time, responding, and the things that are specific to the organization that I can't teach you.”

When consulting with computer science Professor and Department Chair Garrett Dancik, program coordinator for the applied data science graduate program, Kunene was adamant that in order for the Trackman sponsorship to be successful, the company must benefit as well as the students.

“I'm very grateful to all the sponsors that undertake this because it takes more (of their) time than you think from the outside,” she said. “The first iteration may not necessarily deliver something that's mutually beneficial. ... It takes a degree of altruism (for a sponsor) to say, ‘that's okay, let's try it again.’”

Bouchard sees benefits not only for students and Trackman, but for its customers, in the partnership: “The partnership allows us to advance a valuable metric while providing students hands-on experience with real data and meaningful problem-solving. It ultimately benefits both Trackman and our customers by unlocking new insights from player tracking data.”

He continued: “I see this as the beginning of a strong partnership between Trackman and Eastern. Long term, I hope to continue collaborating with Prof. Kunene and to support more programs leveraging Trackman data. On a personal level, I’m excited to help students break into sports analytics, especially within baseball.”