How a sports PhD became a high-performance career

When Dr Tom Lovell started his Bachelor of Human Movement (Hons) at UTS, he had no idea where the road would take him. At the time, he says, his thought process went something like this: I like sports, I like science, maybe sports science will be the right fit.

And it was. Today, Tom is the Head of Performance for Penrith Panthers, one of the 17 clubs in the National Rugby League (NRL). He works with the Panthers’ athletes and coaches to plan their training and assess player performance, and he’s also responsible for integrating the expertise of the organisation’s physical preparation, sports science and medical support teams to maximise team success. It’s a role that combines everything he loves about sport and science in one.

But back in the early days of uni, he didn’t even know such a job existed.

“I knew there were exercise science professionals working with elite athletes, but the integration of sports science in team sports such as rugby league was still in its infancy, and it just seemed a bit abstract and too far away to imagine that possibility for myself,” he says.

“I don’t think I was fully aware of how exciting the career possibilities were until probably third-year uni when I started seeing people in these positions.”

From the classroom to the research lab

It was towards the end of his final year of undergraduate study that Tom was offered an internship with the Parramatta Eels, a placement that came about through one of his UTS lecturers.

That internship, a pre-season appointment in which he helped collect player performance data, turned into a year-long honours research project.

Over the next 12 months, Tom started building extensive networks in the professional rugby league community that would be vital to his future career success.

He also discovered the power of academic research in helping him become a better sports scientist — being able to capture, measure and analyse data and apply the findings to drive improvements in athlete performance would offer value to any sporting discipline, not just rugby league.

“A sports scientist’s job is to try and solve problems in the field, which can be especially challenging with team sport athletes,” he says.

“You’ve got to find novel ways to solve problems, and combining hands-on practical experience with scientific research can help you do that.”  

When his honours degree came to an end, he started thinking about how to keep developing his research interests, both to expand his expertise and to pave the way towards more interesting job opportunities.

“A PhD program seemed the next logical step to progress my career, not only from having more of an academic grounding to solve those challenges but also in terms of the relationships I could forge in the industry,” he says.

Connections (and learning) that count

At UTS, those relationships were already flourishing — Tom’s honours supervisor, Distinguished Professor Aaron Coutts, is one of Australia’s leading sport and exercise science researchers.

Through his connections, Professor Coutts helped Tom find a co-funded PhD project that would continue expanding his skillset. The focus was on long-term athletic development, this time through the lens of early sports experiences for children and young athletes.

The PhD experience gave Tom the opportunity to engage with a different set of challenges beyond the bounds of rugby league. It also pushed him to build the soft skills and personal capabilities that have helped to progress his career.

“To do a PhD, you’ve got to be self-sufficient, you’ve got to be a self-starter and you’ve got to be driven,” he says.

But his passion for professional sport — and the connections he’d built throughout his university career — never wavered. As his PhD studies were nearing completion, one of his UTS peers, who had also been supervised by Professor Coutts, reached out with a job opportunity: Penrith Panthers were looking for a sports scientist to fill a vacant role. Would Tom be interested?

It was the moment that every pathway of his UTS experience converged — the undergraduate degree, his PhD and professional networks all working together to open the door to opportunity.

Since finishing his PhD in 2017, Tom has worked his way up to become Head of Performance at the Panthers. In the last three years, the Panthers have won an unprecedented three straight premierships. He also held a concurrent role with the NSW Blues across five State of Origin series between 2019 and 2023.

When Tom looks back, he can trace a line from his PhD, combined with the multitude of professional experiences he pursued throughout his studies, to the point in his career he’s reached now.

“Without UTS, I would never have had the experiences or connections to get the position to start with,” he says.

“For Professor Coutts to see me wanting to progress my career through a PhD, as well as taking on all the professional experience I could get, it showed that I was hungry to set myself apart from other people who want those kinds of jobs.”

Now, Tom is paying it forward by supporting the next generation of UTS students to find their feet, just as UTS supported him: recently, a job came up in the Panthers sports science team, and Tom looked to his networks. A recent UTS graduate is now filling the role.

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