Curriculum Vitae

Education & Scholarships

  • PhD (in progress), Biomedical Sciences, Université de Montréal (2025–2029)
    Thesis: Modeling the neurological sequelae of head impacts during contact sports
    Awards: NSERC CGRS-D

  • MSc, Neuroscience (Vision), University of Waterloo (2023)
    Thesis: Characterizing & modeling visual attention during motion tracking in high-performance athletes
    Awards: Lyle S. Hallman Graduate Research Scholarship, QEII-GSST

  • Honours BSc, Mathematics & Physics, University of Toronto (2021)
    Thesis: Gait distinction via hip-knee coordination: Applications of dynamical systems theory & computational topology

  • Diploma, Fitness & Health Promotion, Centennial College (2017)

Current Appointments

  • PhD Researcher — CIUSSS–NIM Research Center
    Concussion risk and severity modeling using HR, GPS, IMU, and MRI data

  • Data and Machine Learning Systems Developer — Neurocognition & Mobility Lab (University of Waterloo) Architecting reproducible multimodal data pipelines, databases, and machine learning systems for neurocognitive and mobility research

  • Lead Data & Sport Scientist — Sport Performance Analytics Inc.
    Quantitative modeling, performance analysis, and software development for soccer analytics; introduced flow field, hyper-network, and topological braid models to quantify team and player dynamics; collaborated with national federations

Selected Prior Experience

  • Graduate Researcher — University of Waterloo (2021–2024)
    Modeled functional connectivity and cognitive/motor performance using graph theory, information theory, and control systems; integrated eye-tracking & motion capture technologies

  • Research Assistant — University of Toronto (2018–2021)
    Gait event detection, data fusion, and mobile diagnostics in clinical biomechanics; modeling teaching discourse & 4D fMRI analysis in numerical cognition

Research Publications (selected)

  1. Zafar, A., Martens, G., et al. Effects of head impact exposure on in-game heart rate dynamics in Canadian varsity football athletes (2026, JSAMS)
  2. Zafar, A., Guay, S., et al. Game-aware prediction and interpretation of heart rate dynamics in contact sports using contextually tuned linear time-invariant models (2025, In-review: BMC Digital Health)
  3. Zafar, A., Guay, S., et al. Automated play event detection from sparse GPS American football data using recurrent neural networks (2025, Pre-print: Research Square)
  4. Yousefian, F., Zafar, A., et al. Peak Kinematic and Mechanical Demands According to Playing Positions in Professional Male Soccer (2025, Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport)
  5. Zafar, A., Guay, S., et al. Heart Rate Dynamics and Quantifying Physical Fatigue in Canadian Football (2024, Applied Sciences)

(Full list available on Google Scholar)

Projects & Software (selected)

  • RIME — Open-source multimodal signal annotation, modeling, and benchmarking for Parkinson’s research.

  • TrakScribe (in-development) — Open-source toolkit for analyzing and annotating sport GPS data.

  • Athletic Barcodes & BreakAway Apps — Computer vision and performance analytics app for talent identification, coaching, and athlete monitoring.

Conference & Seminar Presentations (selected)

  • Characterizing eye movement patterns in 1v1 situations in elite futsal, World Congress on Science and Soccer (2022)
  • Characterizing team movement patterns in elite football, World Congress on Science and Soccer (2022)
  • Hyper-Networks for Team Selection in Professional Football, Canadian Undergraduate Mathematics Conference (2019)
  • Structuring Patterns in Team Movement Using Vector Fields, MathSport International (2019)

(Full list available on request)