Human Performance: Seeing the Future of Sports Requires Great Vision

Wednesday, March 10 | 3:00 PM ET

Those eye exam charts used at the DMV are eyesores compared to modern vision assessments for athletes. This Human Performance episode of SportTechie Live will examine the innovative ways that vision performance is becoming a staple of training at all levels, from amateur to pro, across all sports. Our expert panelists will discuss how athletes can improve hand-eye coordination, reaction time, peripheral vision, and focus while tracking moving objects, as well as vision’s role in developing motor skills.

Featured Speakers

Cathy Craig is a Professor of perception action psychology at Ulster University. She has published over 100 scientific papers and was the first in the world to use virtual reality technology to understand decision-making in sport. She has worked with elite athletes in soccer, rugby, cricket and handball but also children with autism, older adults and people with Parkinson’s. She is also co-founder and CEO of INCISIV., a neuro-technology start-up that combines the power of immersive technologies with data analytics to measure and improve a person’s decision-making abilities (a.k.a Action Intelligence (AQ)). Their first product to market is called CleanSheet and has been specifically designed to help goalkeepers pull off more match winning saves. It is currently being used by elite and academy goalkeepers across Europe and is also being adapted for field hockey. Working with Scottish Rugby, INCISIV are now working on their next product to help diagnose and rehabilitate players suffering from sports-related concussion.

Daniel M. Laby, MD is the Pediatric Ophthalmologist and Sports Vision Specialist at SportsVisionNYC, Assistant Clinical Professor (fmr), Harvard Medical School; Private practice; President of EYEcheck Systems, LLC and ChampionsEdge, LLC. Dr. Laby began his career in 1993 and specializes in Sports Vision as well as Pediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus. Dr. Laby has served as a sports vision consultant for many professional sports teams in MLB, NBA, NHL, the Korean Baseball League as well as Premier League Soccer (UK), the US Olympic team for the Beijing games and the Israel National Baseball Team for the Tokyo games (2021).

Lukas McKnight was the Illinois state player of the year in 1998 and went on to play collegiately at the University of Kansas and Triton College. He was drafted by the Chicago Cubs and spent 5 years in their minor league system. He then transitioned off the field to an area scout for the Cubs (in the Ohio Valley reggion and then South Florida) before crosschecking the northeast in 2012. From 2013-2020, he worked in the Cubs front office as the Assistant Director of Amateur Scouting. He's coached at the youth level as well as assisting in the East Coast Pro Showcase and the Florida Diamond Club. He's spoken at numerous events, including the IHSBCA Coach's Clinic and the Under Armour All American Game. He has a degree in English from North Park University and is a current MBA candidate at University of Illinois's Gies College of Business.

Dr Sean Müller is Associate Professor at Federation University specialized in the field of expertise and skill learning in sport. A focus of his research has been to understand how experts use visual information to anticipate in sport, as well as how anticipation can be trained and transfers to field settings. Dr. Müller has also conducted interdisciplinary research that combines visual anticipation with biomechanics and decision-making with sport psychology. Dr. Müller has collaborated with several sports organizations such as Cricket Australia, Hockey Australia and Tampa Bay Rays Major League Baseball Organization. Findings from his research have been used to assess and train athletes in a variety of sports.

Moderated by: Joe Lemire, Senior Writer, SportTechie

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