Rate My Professor Daniel Link

Professor Daniel Link holds the adjunct professorship in Performance Analysis and Sport Informatics at the Technical University of Munich's TUM School of Medicine and Health. He studied computer science at TU Dortmund University before earning his doctorate in sports science from the University of Augsburg. At the former Faculty of Sport and Health Sciences at TUM, he obtained the venia legendi for sports science. Appointed as an adjunct professor effective September 2023, Link serves as a scientist and chair holder in Performance Analysis and Sports Informatics within the Department of Sport and Health Sciences. His research centers on the systematics of training and competition, as well as the digitalization of sports. This encompasses technological aspects of data acquisition, mathematical modeling of performance phenomena, and the analysis of sports data using artificial intelligence approaches. A key focus is the application of spatiotemporal data in team sports to develop physical and technical-tactical performance metrics. Link heads the Sports Informatics and Sports Technology Section of the German Association for Sports Science (DVS), acts as General Secretary of the International Association of Computer Science in Sport (IACSS), and reviews grants for the Federal Institute for Sports Science (BISp). He supports German elite sports in implementing match analysis processes and has secured funding for projects totaling around 170,000 euros from the Munich Data Science Institute and BISp. These include AI-supported spatiotemporal pattern analysis in top-level sports, strategic adaptations in beach volleyball, and performance profiling for national badminton teams.

Link's contributions extend to practical applications in elite competition, with TUM software he helped develop aiding German beach volleyball teams to Olympic gold in 2012 and silver in 2016. Notable publications include the book 'Data Analytics in Professional Soccer' (Springer, 2018), and peer-reviewed articles such as 'Individual ball possession in soccer' (PLOS ONE, 2017), 'Real Time Quantification of Dangerousity in Football Using Spatiotemporal Tracking Data' (PLOS ONE, 2016), and studies on sequence decisions in beach volleyball (Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 2022) and the impact of COVID-19 on Bundesliga game structures (2021). His work advances sports informatics, influencing training optimization and competition analysis in professional and Olympic contexts.