2023 ESSA Accredited High Performance Manager Think Tank

The inaugural 2023 ESSA Accredited High Performance Manager Think Tank is an event designed for Accredited High Performance Managers and Accredited Sports Scientists Level 2. This event will aim to answer the question "How do you lead and manage performance in a technology-driven sporting world?"

This is a recording of the ESSA AHPM Think Tank presented on 24 November 2023. 

 

Presented by  

Carmen Colomer, Head of Performance Perth Glory Football Club
Carmen has had an extensive career in sports science, holding key positions that reflect her focus on optimizing athletic performance. Notably, she served as the Director of Sports Science for the Philadelphia 76ers in the NBA, where she skillfully navigated the intricate balance of managing training load and recovery. Her strategic approach not only minimized time-loss from games but also effectively mitigated the impact of fatigue in the face of the demanding travel and playing schedule.

Prior to her influential stint with the 76ers, Carmen spent nearly a decade in high-performance sport, contributing to teams such as the Melbourne Rebels, ACT Brumbies, and Brisbane Broncos. During this time, she honed her passion for training load monitoring, fatigue management, and recovery strategies.

Carmen earned her credentials as a physiologist through a traineeship at the Victorian Institute of Sport and a postgraduate scholar position at the Australian Institute of Sport. Subsequently, she pursued a Ph.D. in Complex Systems Analysis in rugby union, refining her deep understanding of the intricacies of athletic performance.

Hailing from Melbourne, Carmen’s academic journey includes a Bachelor of Sports Science and a Masters of High-Performance Sport. Currently, as the Head of Performance for the Perth Glory Football Club, Carmen oversees a comprehensive spectrum of performance support services, including Sports Science, Strength & Conditioning, and Nutrition. Her leadership continues to drive excellence and innovation and contributes to the overall functioning of the team.

Dr Jason Weber, AHPM, SpeedSig
For over twenty-five years Dr. Jason Weber has been at the forefront of athlete preparation, program management and science innovation in professional sport in Australia. After preparing players for over 100 Super Rugby games with the REDS and WARATAHS, Jason went on to become the longest serving Strength & Conditioning Coach for the WALLABIES (2002-2007), directly overseeing physical preparation of the team for over 100 test matches including two Rugby World Cups. From 2008-2020 Jason held the position of High-Performance Manager for the Fremantle Dockers in the AFL. As an academic Dr. Weber has been awarded a PhD in biomechanics (ECU) and master’s degree in exercise physiology (UNSW), co-supervised four PhD programs in sports science and co-authored a dozen peer reviewed publications, including being a key author on the Australian Academy of Science data privacy discussion paper; Getting Ahead of the Game. Over the last three years Dr. Weber has built on his PhD research to establish SPEEDSIG, a data analytics company that provides unique biomechanical assessment of dynamic movement in field sports across Australia, US, New Zealand, and Japan.

Dr Emma Beckman, ESSA Vice President, QAS and Paralympics Australia High Performance Manager
Dr Emma Beckman is an Associate Professor at the University of Queensland. Emma is passionate about engaging in research to improve the lives of people with a disability through sports, physical activity, and exercise. Following a master’s degree in Adapted physical activity, Emma completed her PhD in strength assessment for classification in Para Sport. She is currently a co-investigator in the UQ IPC Classification Research Partnership, and an internationally accredited classifier in Para Athletics. She also currently holds a secondment with the Queensland Academy of Sport (QAS) and Paralympics Australia as a Para Sport High Performance Manager.

Duncan Armstrong, OAM
Duncan became a household name when he claimed one of only three Olympic Gold medals Australia won at the Seoul Games in 1988. The victory also broke the 200 freestyle World Record to win Australia's 100th medal in Olympic competition.  

Coached and mentored by the charismatic and unstoppable Laurie Lawrence, Duncan's career in the pool spanned 10 years in the Green and Gold. 

Since retiring from competitive swimming, Duncan has received a host of national honours including an Order of Australia Medal and the Young Australian of the Year. 

Nowadays, Duncan divides his time raising his five children with his wife Rebecca, and has maintained a corporate career with many of Australia’s most recognised brands like Telstra, Westpac, Qantas and is currently Brand Strategy Manager with Exercise & Sport Science Australia. 

He has engaged in media work and corporate coaching as well as the charitable partnerships and his services as a committed Christian.  

A truly inspirational Australian, with a truly inspiration story. Duncan will share some of his funniest and memorable moments from inside his Green and Gold tracksuit, and the lessons life has presented to him. 

Dr Paolo Menespa, ASpS2, AHPM, Chief Science Officer AIS
Dr. Paolo Menespa is a sport scientist and high performance manager. He completed his PhD at Edith Cowan University in Perth Australia in 2015, earning the Australian Institute of Sport award for impactful Exercise Physiology research. His experience includes working with the Italian cycling team in preparation for Beijing 2008 Games and the Australian cycling team before the London 2012, Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020 Games.

Currently, Dr. Menespa serves as the Chief Science Officer at the Australian Institute of Sport. Prior to this, he was the Head of Performance Solutions at AusCycling and a performance manger and coach for the professional cycling team 'GreenEDGE'. 

In recognition of his outstanding contributions to high-performance sports, Dr. Menespa was awarded the ESSA Accredited High Performance Manager of the Year in 2022. 

Julian Jones, ASCA Master L3, AIS Performance Services Manager and ASCA President
Julian has been an active strength and conditioning coach for over 30 years coaching athletes from a range of sports such as Rugby League, Swimming, Rowing, Basketball, BMX and Water Polo at national and international level and has directly coached over 38 Olympic medallists across these sports. He is currently the Performance Services Manager at the Australian Institute of Sport. He previously held the role of Head of the Strength & Conditioning at the AIS from 1997 to 2017 and Head of Performance Support from 2017 to 2018. In his current position he leads a performance team of 23 staff that provide specialist performance support to sports that utilise the AIS campus in Canberra to optimise their performance outcomes. The team is made up of specialists in strength and conditioning, physiology, biomechanics, nutrition, skill acquisition and psychology. This diverse Performance Team provides expert specialist advice to national sporting organisations on their performance planning, periodisation and individual athlete plans to optimise the national systems usage of the resources allocated. He holds a Master of Science degree from Edith Cowan University along with a Graduate Diploma in Elite Coaching and holds the ASCA’s top coaching accreditation of Master L3. He Chair’s the Course Review Committee at Edith Cowen University for its Master’s in Strength & Conditioning Course and is a member of the University of Canberra Master’s in Strength & Conditioning Course Committee. Julian has been a Board Member of the Australian Strength & Conditioning Ass since 2010 and has been its President since 2022.

Blake McLean, PhD, ASpS2, AHPM, CSCS, University of Technology Sydney and Oklahoma City Thunder
For the past 17 years Blake has worked within high-performance sports internationally, including in the NBA, NCAA, AFL and NRL. Blake currently works with the University of Technology Sydney and the Oklahoma City Thunder, where is involved in a number of international industry research collaborations, aiming to develop best practice human performance models. His work aims to support evidence-led decision making in the pursuit of optimal health and performance. 
 
Blake is passionate about the intersection between research, the application scientific principles in daily practice, and supporting the concept of a lifetime of learning. He serves as part of the Exercise & Sports Science Australia (ESSA) Sports Science Working Group and holds following industry accreditations:

Accredited High Performance Manager (AHPM) | Exercise and Sports Science Australia 
Accredited Sports Scientist (ASpS2) | Exercise and Sports Science Australia
Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialist (CSCS), National Strength & Conditioning Associations

Tom Reddin, ASpS2, AHPM, GWS Giants AFLW & Super Netball Head of Strength & Conditioning and Sport Science
Tom is a Strength & Conditioning Coach and Accredited High-Performance Manager with more than 20 years of experience working with elite athletes, sports teams and leading multi-disciplinary Sport Science / Sport Medicine departments. 

Organisations/Teams he has worked with include: NSW Institute of Sport, AFL NSW, NSW Men’s & Women’s State Cricket Teams, Melbourne City A-League Men, Sydney University NEAFL, and GWS GIANTS. He is the current Head of Strength & Conditioning and Sport Science for the GWS GIANTS AFLW & Super Netball teams where he is responsible for the physical preparation and athletic development of 50+ elite female athletes.
 
Tom is an ESSA Accredited High-Performance Manager & Accredited Sports Scientist Level 2, and an ASCA Accredited Level 3 Elite Strength & Conditioning Coach.

Codey Moran, Research & Development Sports Scientist Catapult Sports
Codey is a Research & Development Sports Scientist at Catapult Sports with 8 years prior experience working in elite sport. Joining Catapult in 2022, Codey has been responsible for the testing and validation of wearable technology, alongside contributing to the advancement of sports science innovations aimed at providing enhanced insights for practitioners. Previously, Codey held the position of Sports Scientist at Essendon Football Club between 2015-2022 where he was responsible for coordinating the sports science program across AFL, AFLW, VFL, and VFLW. Before that, Codey contributed to the women's hockey program at the Victorian Institute of Sport as a Performance Analyst.

Codey commenced his academic journey by pursuing an undergraduate degree in sports science at Victoria University, and later completed an honours degree through research investigating the relationship between physical performance and technical actions in soccer. Throughout Codey’s career, he has had strong passion for leveraging wearable technology to provide contextual analysis for physical and tactical performance.

Dr Alice Sweeting, PhD
Alice has been a Lecturer and Researcher at Victoria University (VU) since late 2016, after completing her PhD with Netball Australia and the Australian Institute of Sport. Alice currently supervises PhD students and is involved in research projects, as part of a strategic partnership between Victoria University and the Western Bulldogs. These sports analytics projects include applying data mining techniques to wearable sensor and skilled output data, to evaluate team-sport matches and training. Alice’s key areas of interest include spatiotemporal data analysis, the use of wearable sensors and the complex systems approach to understanding team-sport behaviour. Alice currently teaches into and chairs the Graduate Certificate in Data Analytics for Sport Performance at Victoria University, whereby students learn how to analyse, visualise and interpret sports performance data, using programming languages and analytics.

Breanna Brock, Head of Women's Football Brisbane Lions
As Head of Women’s Football at the Brisbane Lions, Breeanna has over the last 10 years, cemented Queensland’s reputation as one of the powerhouse states for women’s AFL. In 2023 the Lions AFLW team will compete in its 7th finals series out of a possible 8. Sustained success has inspired a whole new generation of participants to take up the game. With access to this elite, high performing environment, females are now no longer forced to abandon a game they love due to lack of professional opportunity. Breeanna’s work is slowly dismantling age-old thinking around female representation in sport, to create a more level, gender-balanced, playing field both on and off the field. The daughter of a diplomat, Breeanna spent her early years growing up overseas. Lucky enough to have lived in England, Greece, Pakistan and Kenya her diverse childhood helped shape her strong passion for the advancement of women and girls particularly through sport.

Andrew Weller, AHPM, Senior SSSM Performance Manager at Cricket Australia
Andrew Weller is the Senior SSSM Performance Manager at Cricket Australia. He has worked as both a Physiotherapist and Strength and Conditioning in Elite sport and has broad experience across both professions. He has previously held roles as High Performance Manager at Gold Coast Suns and Rehabilitation and Sports Science Manager at St Kilda FC in the Australian Football League (AFL).

Available to

ESSA Members only
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Rates per person

ESSA Member		$150
Non-Member		$225

 

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CPD Points

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