Senior Research Assistant, Development of a Virtual AI-powered Platform for Youth Sports Training - PSAC-RC

Competition Number: RC150.26 Date Posted: October 19, 2026 Department: Applied Computer Science Researcher: Dr. Michael Beck Position Vacancies: 1 Salary: $25.00 per hour plus 6% vacation pay

Senior Research Assistants are normally graduate students, or University of Winnipeg undergraduate students, employed to assist in the execution and evaluation of research projects in their area of study. The positions may oversee Research Assistants in areas such as the use of proper techniques, analysis, and documentation. Senior Research Assistants work under the general supervision or direction of more senior researchers or faculty members, and are expected to exercise judgment in prioritizing, planning and organizing their own work within defined parameters.

Position Overview:

This research project will study how artificial intelligence can better understand and evaluate human movement from ordinary video. Working with UPRO Soccer, the Senior Research Assistant will develop and test computer vision methods that can recognize different soccer drills, compare a player’s movements with professional examples, and estimate how well the drill is performed. The project will use existing videos of professional and youth players to build a system that learns patterns of movement over time.

The goal is not just to identify what drill is being done, but to understand movement quality in a way that is reliable and practical. More broadly, the project will contribute to Canadian research and innovation in computer vision, artificial intelligence, and sports technology.

Duties:

- Prepare equipment and materials for research.




- Perform academic research, standard tests and experiments.
- Monitor and document research status and findings.
- Assist with duties related to the production of articles, publications, reports and presentations.
- Prepare literature reviews.
- Assist in data collection, data entry, analysis and interpretation.
- Assist in the acquisition of research materials and supplies.
- Assist in the execution and evaluation of research projects, including literature reviews, surveys, focus groups, data integration and analysis.
- Assist in preparing articles, publications, reports and presentations.
- Prepare materials for submission to research funding agencies and foundations.

Qualifications:

- Masters degree or higher in Computer Science, with strong overall GPA.
- Thesis related to machine learning, especially in image or video object detection/classification.
- Strong experience with machine learning models applied to video data, specifically gesture/posture recognition.
- Evaluating deep machine learning models to map their output to scoring metrics.
- Experience in working with remote GPU-servers and working with remote data access (SFTP, SSH, Docker, CUDA).

Condition(s) of Employment:

- Must be legally entitled to work in Canada.

The period of work will be from Nov 02, 2026 - Mar 15,



2027 and the estimated total hours of work will be 0-517 hours. Note: This position is represented by the Public Service Alliance of Canada - Research Capacity Unit.

Note: The work described in this posting will be conducted remotely.

The University of Winnipeg is committed to equity, diversity and inclusion and recognizes that a diverse staff and faculty benefits and enriches the work, learning and research environments, and is essential to academic and institutional excellence. We welcome applications from all qualified individuals and encourage women, racialized persons, Indigenous persons, persons with disabilities, and 2SLGBTQ+ persons to confidentially self-identify at time of application.

The University of Winnipeg is committed to ensuring employment opportunities are accessible for all applicants. If you require accommodation supports during the recruitment process, please contact [email protected]: mailto:[email protected].

The personal information of applicants is collected under the authority of the University of Winnipeg Act and 36(1)(b) of the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. All personal information collected via the recruitment process is used to assess the applicant’s suitability, eligibility, and qualifications for employment, and to otherwise support recruitment activities. This information will be provided to participating members of the recruitment process.

Questions regarding the collection of your personal information may be directed to the Director, HR Services, 515 Portage Avenue, Winnipeg, MB, R3B 2E9 or [email protected].

📌 Senior Research Assistant, Development of a Virtual AI-powered Platform for Youth Sports Training (Winnipeg)
🏢 University of Winnipeg
📍 Winnipeg