A/ProfKatie Slattery

Dr Katie Slattery is a lecturer at the School of Sport, Exercise and Rehabilitation, UTS.

A UTS alumni who began her sports science career as a physiologist at the NSW Institute of Sport (NSWIS) and then supported the women's track endurance cycling squad to the 2016 Rio Olympics as a performance scientist.

“Endurance sport is my ‘thing’. Without being blessed with many fast twitch fibres or co-ordination, running and triathlon were my chosen sports” Katie said.

“I was never a top athlete, but from training and competing throughout school and university my interest in sports science and optimising human performance grew.”

Her job as a performance scientist with an Olympic team took her to the highest levels of sport.

“We were going for gold in the team pursuit. Using a performance-centred approach, I worked closely with the coaches to forecast the performance required to win and then developed strategies that were in line with the team ethos and philosophy to best prepare the athletes.”

“To do this, we leveraged the existing scientific literature and my own research to translate and apply these findings to our high-performance setting.”

It was also her job to quantify training and provide in-competition support to the team. This included race analysis and scouting of competitors’ performances to inform the coaches and athletes on how to best optimise our race strategy.

“The satisfaction is when all the pieces come together for the athletes. Looking back to when the team won the 2015 World Championships in a world record time, it was magic. Seeing the athletes in a state of flow. Knowing that they’ve done all the hard work, and were in the best possible state of readiness to perform.” Katie said.

Returning to the NSWIS as the coach of the endurance squad, she discovered the importance of holistic athlete development and the relational side of coaching.

“If you look at the physical, technical, tactical and mental constructs in isolation you’re not getting a full picture on how well the athlete will perform,” she said.

Katie has now shifted her focus to concentrate on conducting research at UTS and teaching the next gen of sport and exercise practitioners. Taking her learnings as a sports scientist and a coach to explore how to optimise performance using both quantitative and qualitative research methods.