When Jean Applys Cherizol enrolled in the University of Michigan School of Information’s fully online Master of Applied Data Science program, he says he was thinking about what earning a MADS degree could do for his career.

He had already completed more than a dozen Massive Open Online Courses about data science, but he knew that becoming a UMSI master’s student meant accessing resources that MOOCs can’t offer — like facetime with expert faculty and a peer community that’s active both on- and offline.

There are a lot of unexpected opportunities for growth that come with joining UMSI, too. When hitting submit on his application, for example, Cherizol didn’t foresee himself at the leading forum for sports analytics, meeting data science pros doing leading-edge work with the NBA.

But let’s back up. 

Cherizol, a data scientist at the California Department of Health, was looking for some extra practice with machine learning during his time as a MADS student.

“Professor Chris Brooks advised me to register for Introduction to Sports Analytics,” Cherizol says.

In this MADS course, students study how supervised machine learning techniques are applied in the sports analytics domain, including in individual sporting events, team events and emerging wearable sensor technologies. 

After registering for the course, Cherizol received an invitation from UMSI to apply for support to attend the 2024 MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference in Boston, Massachusetts. He was selected to attend alongside 16 U-M peers. 

“It was a great opportunity for me,” Cherizol said. “Not only am I taking the course, but I was also able to see firsthand all these ways that data can be used in sports.”

Getting to the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference was like entering a new world for Cherizol. He was amazed to see how fast these data scientists can move.

“One presenter explained how they’re trying to do live data analysis in sports,” Cherizol says. “While teams are playing, data scientists are working on live analysis to, for example, give coaches and trainers information. That almost blew my mind.”

That excitement for data is shared by members of U-M’s sports analytics community, spanning UMSI, the School of Kinesiology, the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts, and more. For Cherizol, who hails from Palo Alto, California, this conference was a perfect chance to connect with those like-minded peers in person for the first time.

Cherizol was also pumped to meet data scientists working with the Los Angeles Lakers and Sacramento Kings, who shared a surprising industry insight. 

“I asked them questions about how they got started working with data, because there weren’t many resources available at that time,” Cherizol said. “They told me that they actually worked together.” 

“They said, ‘We compete for the game, but when it comes to management, we collaborate.’ Data is like a bridge for them. Each team tries to see how the rest is using data, and they share their innovations.”

That’s an overall gainful strategy, considering that sports analytics can influence a lot more than just wins and losses. Insights from data can also inform players’ training, wellbeing and injury prevention. 

The Introduction to Sports Analytics course is Cherizol’s final course in the MADS degree program. The next time he’ll see UMSI peers in person is at the school’s graduation ceremony in May 2024.

“I feel like I’m ready to work in this domain,” he says. “I have more skills, more abilities and more confidence.” 

— Martha Foxlong, UMSI marketing and communications writer

Learn more about UMSI’s Master of Applied Data Science program and how to apply.