Heidi Thornton

Heidi Thornton

Head of Sports Science

Gold Coast Suns Football Club

About me

I am a sports scientist based in Newcastle Australia. Currently, I am working as a head of sports science for two teams, the Gold Coast Suns Football Club (AFL) and the Newcastle Knights Rugby League Club (NRL). My roles entail developing the sports science programs across both clubs by implementing research driven, innovative practices, utilising athlete tracking technologies such as GPS to assess athlete physical performance. I deal with a lot of data, meaning my skills using R, power BI and other programs comes in handy!

Interests
  • Athlete tracking (GPS)
  • Sports analytics
  • Sports performance
  • R programming
  • Data visualisation
  • Statistics
  • Load monitoring
Education
  • PhD in Human Movement, 2019

    La Trobe University

  • Bachelor of Exercise and Sports Science (Honours), 2014

    University of Newcastle

  • Bachelor of Exercise and Sports Science, 2013

    University of Newcastle

Employment

 
 
 
 
 
Head of sports science
Nov 2020 – Present Newcastle
 
 
 
 
 
Head of sports science
Nov 2019 – Oct 2020 Gold Coast
 
 
 
 
 
Sports scientist
Nov 2018 – Oct 2019 Gold Coast
 
 
 
 
 
Head of sports science
Aug 2016 – Oct 2018 Newcastle
 
 
 
 
 
Assistant sports scientist
Jul 2013 – Jul 2016 Newcastle