Katherine Evans is joining the Wizards as the first woman to head the research or analytics department of a NBA franchise.
Great Basketball declared the hire Friday, saying Evans would manage its research department, supporting the Wizards, the WNBA’s Washington Mystics, the G League’s Capital City Go-Go and Wizards District Gaming. Her new title is VP of research and information systems.
“Dr. Evans is an exceptional talent with a true passion for the game of basketball and is widely respected within the league and academic circles,” said Sashi Brown, Monumental Basketball’s chief planning and operations officer. “She brings innovative approaches and perspectives and will be a great leader of our research department, which is charged with identifying competitive advantages for all of our athletes and our athlete care and performance team.”
Evans recently was director of strategic research for the Toronto Raptors. She oversaw data sources to construct a draft possibilities database and helped analyze methods and build models for player evaluation and on-court strategy.
“I am looking forward to contributing to all the Monumental Basketball teams and to helping expand their analytics capabilities,” Evans said.
Evans has a doctorate in biostatistics from Harvard. She went through two years as an data scientist with Verily Life Sciences.