During a historic spring for UF men’s basketball, May graduate Hanna Lewis makes a courtside impact
Graduating master’s student Hanna Lewis’ experience at the University of Florida has been nothing short of epic, as she has helped reshape Gator sports history as an athletics intern.
Working with the University Athletic Association and supporting the UF men’s basketball team, Lewis used AI and an array of athlete-specific modalities to collect data from wearable technology, which tracked player performance on the court to identify fatigue and enhance training and recovery. Her team conducted this reporting following practices and games, which became crucial when the team entered March Madness this year. Then, when the Gators won the National Collegiate Athletic Association Championship on April 7 against the Houston Cougars, Lewis felt she had truly made an impact on the team.
“I think the word to describe it was nerve-wracking,” Lewis said about the April victory as she prepared for the May 2025 UF commencement. “I don’t think I’ve ever been that stressed in my life.”
The payoff was worth it, as the experience prepared Lewis for her future sports-related career goals. Lewis was one of a select group of students who was chosen for the sport performance and analytics internship at UF, mentored by Spencer Thomas, M.S., A.T.C., CSCS, director of the Sports Performance and Analytics Division and internship clinical coordinator, and Victor Lopez, M.A., RSCC, CSCS, assistant director of strength and conditioning for men’s basketball.
Tracking the team’s performance allowed Lewis to explore data analytics while she pursued a master's degree in applied physiology and kinesiology at the UF College of Health & Human Performance. She worked closely with Garrett Beatty, Ph.D., assistant dean for innovation and entrepreneurship and an instructional associate professor at the college, who supported her role on the team as she studied applied sport science. The internship enhanced Lewis’ creativity, inspiring her to use the latest technology to enhance the sports landscape at UF.
“My brain is constantly going, ‘What if I could do this?’ For example, I created a heat map for just our player data to see if there were any trends in our games,” Lewis said about her time with the men’s basketball team. “I asked AI, ‘I want to create a graph that looks like this and show me how to do it.’ I don’t think people realize how creative this process is, and I’ve always been a naturally creative person. My outlet used to be art and now it’s building, designing dashboards or helping create graphs for the coaches.”
At UF, sports medicine, strength and conditioning, and performance analytics intersect closely by examining athlete performance data while enhancing game strategy and preventing player injuries. Across the university, colleges like the UF College of Health & Human Performance have played an active role in advancing sports through analytics, thanks to a partnership with the University Athletic Association and the evolution of the UF & Sport Collaborative, launched in January 2024. Students like Lewis have benefited from the experiential learning opportunities and resources that have come out of this initiative.
“I’m a very detail-oriented person. I understand puzzle pieces,” Lewis said. “And the thought of being able to change someone’s performance and how they could better themselves as an athlete through numbers and their evidence was pretty cool.”
Reflecting on her UF experience and her newfound passion for sports analytics, Lewis envisions herself working with the U.S. soccer team, traveling the world and ultimately designing a sports analytics system from scratch. Based on her academic experience and self-taught skills with these data analytics systems, she aspires to create new software that is easier to use, simpler, more affordable and less complex.
“I have worked with a lot of systems and there are so many issues with them,” Lewis said. “Why not have the opportunity to build something yourself?”