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309: Building Smarter Performance Systems with Emily Jacobson
This week on the Science for Sport podcast, Richard Graves is joined by Emily Jacobson, Assistant Director of Sports Performance at Marquette University.
Emily has spent the past decade building and refining a sports science model within a relatively small department, working primarily with men’s and women’s soccer and volleyball. Alongside her role at Marquette, she also contributes to U.S. Soccer in a high-performance capacity.
In this conversation, we explore one of the most pressing challenges in applied sports science: how do you simplify complex data streams so they become actionable for coaches and meaningful for athletes?
From acute:chronic workload ratios and GPS monitoring to return-to-play frameworks and Power BI dashboards, Emily shares how she transformed “expensive toys” into effective performance tools.
She discusses the importance of visualisation, collaboration with data engineers, humility in decision-making, and why the “eyeball test” still matters in a world driven by wearables and AI.
For practitioners working in elite sport, or those building systems within constrained environments, this episode offers practical insight into making sports science more impactful, not just more complex.
In this episode you will learn:
About Emily Jacobson
Emily Jacobson is the Assistant Director of Sports Performance at Marquette University, where she has worked for the past 10 seasons. A former Marquette women’s soccer student-athlete, she now oversees sports science and performance systems across multiple programmes, with a particular focus on soccer and volleyball.
She has helped develop load monitoring models, return-to-play protocols and data visualisation systems that integrate GPS, velocity-based training, force plates, motion capture and body composition analysis.
In addition to her work at Marquette, Emily serves as a network employee within U.S. Soccer’s high-performance department.
Her approach combines applied performance coaching, collaborative analytics, and a strong emphasis on education and athlete relationships.
FREE 7d SCIENCE FOR SPORT ACADEMY TRIAL
SIGN UP NOW: https://bit.ly/SFSepisode241
Learn Quicker & More Effectively
Optimise Your Athletes' Recovery
Position Yourself As An Expert To Your Athletes And Naturally Improve Buy-In
Reduce Your Athletes' Injury Ratese
Save 100's Of Dollars A Year That Would Otherwise Be Spent On Books, Courses And More
Improve Your Athletes' Performance
Advance Forward In Your Career, Allowing You To Earn More Money And Work With Elite-Level Athletes
Save Yourself The Stress & Worry Of Constantly Trying To Stay Up-To-Date With Sports Science Research
View all episodes
By Science for Sport
4.7
3232 ratings
This week on the Science for Sport podcast, Richard Graves is joined by Emily Jacobson, Assistant Director of Sports Performance at Marquette University.
Emily has spent the past decade building and refining a sports science model within a relatively small department, working primarily with men’s and women’s soccer and volleyball. Alongside her role at Marquette, she also contributes to U.S. Soccer in a high-performance capacity.
In this conversation, we explore one of the most pressing challenges in applied sports science: how do you simplify complex data streams so they become actionable for coaches and meaningful for athletes?
From acute:chronic workload ratios and GPS monitoring to return-to-play frameworks and Power BI dashboards, Emily shares how she transformed “expensive toys” into effective performance tools.
She discusses the importance of visualisation, collaboration with data engineers, humility in decision-making, and why the “eyeball test” still matters in a world driven by wearables and AI.
For practitioners working in elite sport, or those building systems within constrained environments, this episode offers practical insight into making sports science more impactful, not just more complex.
In this episode you will learn:
About Emily Jacobson
Emily Jacobson is the Assistant Director of Sports Performance at Marquette University, where she has worked for the past 10 seasons. A former Marquette women’s soccer student-athlete, she now oversees sports science and performance systems across multiple programmes, with a particular focus on soccer and volleyball.
She has helped develop load monitoring models, return-to-play protocols and data visualisation systems that integrate GPS, velocity-based training, force plates, motion capture and body composition analysis.
In addition to her work at Marquette, Emily serves as a network employee within U.S. Soccer’s high-performance department.
Her approach combines applied performance coaching, collaborative analytics, and a strong emphasis on education and athlete relationships.
FREE 7d SCIENCE FOR SPORT ACADEMY TRIAL
SIGN UP NOW: https://bit.ly/SFSepisode241
Learn Quicker & More Effectively
Optimise Your Athletes' Recovery
Position Yourself As An Expert To Your Athletes And Naturally Improve Buy-In
Reduce Your Athletes' Injury Ratese
Save 100's Of Dollars A Year That Would Otherwise Be Spent On Books, Courses And More
Improve Your Athletes' Performance
Advance Forward In Your Career, Allowing You To Earn More Money And Work With Elite-Level Athletes
Save Yourself The Stress & Worry Of Constantly Trying To Stay Up-To-Date With Sports Science Research
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