Data mining to improve the performance of Olympic athletes

David Higham is one of three English Institute of Sport/Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council case studentships in Centre for Sports Engineering Research. The aim of his PhD is to determine the workflow required to identify the participants in a hockey video using a single camera. This will employ computer vision techniques to extract reliable features that can discriminate between individuals. Such techniques are common in surveillance, however the application to sport is complicated by the similarity brought by wearing matching uniforms.

Prior to starting his PhD, David graduated from the University of East Anglia in 2009 with a 1st Class Honours degree in Computer Science. He spent the second year of this course studying computer science at the University of California, Davis. Upon his graduation he was awarded 'Best Student on the Computer Science Course at University of East Anglia' by the British Computer Society. David then went onto work as a Software Engineer at BT before completing an MSc in Sports Engineering at Sheffield Hallam University. He graduated in 2012 with a distinction.

Email D.higham@shu.ac.uk