Keynote Speakers
Dean Oliver pioneered the basketball analytics movement with his 2004 book, Basketball on Paper. He has since worked in NBA front offices and as an assistant coach, incorporating analytics into the decision-making processes. He helped create ESPN’s sports analytics group in 2011 and rejoined the group in May. His new book, Basketball Beyond Paper, came out in November 2024 and documents his experiences as well as many studies into player fit, psychology, and performance.
Alok is a Developer Advocate at Google Cloud, focused on generative AI, data science, and sports analytics. He has a passion for transforming data into valuable insights and aims to highlight how data science and generative AI tools can empower practitioners to address challenges and achieve greater impact. Alok is an expert in sports analytics, having been a founding member and leader of ESPN's sports analytics team before joining Google. He actively provides data science consulting services to teams and leagues and maintains a public presence in the field.
2025 Football Analytics Workshop: Transforming the
Big Data Bowl
Udit Ranasaria
Director of Deep Learning, SÅ«merSports
BIO:
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Udit Ranasaria is the Director of Deep Learning at SÅ«merSports, 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 SÅ«mer, 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.
Vishakh Sandwar
Research Engineer, SÅ«merSports
BIO:
Vishakh Sandwar is currently a Research Engineer at SÅ«merSports on the Football AI team, and half of the 2025 NFL Big Data Bowl winning team for his work on using transformers to predict man vs. zone coverage. He's simultaneously finishing his final year at NYU Stern where he's studying Math and Finance. His interests are bayesian statistics, startups and the Green Bay Packers, and his experience is in the application of statistical concepts in a breadth of fields, not limited to finance, biology, and football.
Location
Conference Location
The CMSAConference will be held in Baker Hall at Carnegie Mellon University, providing a dynamic setting for collaboration and learning. Join us in this vibrant environment to immerse yourself in the world of sports analytics.
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA
Hotels & Lodging
Our hotel block is now SOLD OUT.
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If you are still in need of lodging, please refer to the following hotels in the area:
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Springhill Suites in Bakery Square
Sheraton Pittsburgh Airport Hotel
Courtyard by Marriott Pittsburgh Airport
DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Pittsburgh Airport
Hampton Inn & Suites Pittsburgh/Waterfront-West Homestead
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*Please note that there is no designated hotel block at any of these locations and pricing cannot be guaranteed
