Propelling the Blue Jays to success

Juliana Bossom (BSc ’23, MSc ’26) is gearing up for another season with the Toronto Blue Jays, where she’ll once again join the club’s biomechanics team. The second-year Master of Science student spent last fall as a biomechanics intern, supporting research focused on player performance, movement and sports science.

For Bossom, it was another step towards what she hopes to do once she completes her master’s.

“It’s been really cool to apply what I’ve learned in undergrad and now in my master’s program to real-world work with human movement and performance data,” she says.

As a student-athlete who competed for the Warriors rugby team, Bossom brings firsthand experience of high‑performance sport. Her fascination with how the body moves, combined with her varsity background, has shaped her path.

“Competing for the Warriors has helped a lot in putting myself in the player’s shoes so when I’m working with athletes, I can empathize, while at the same time I feel comfortable in that high-level environment.”

Her time supporting the Warriors’ strength and conditioning staff and working in Dr. Jack Callaghan’s Spine Biomechanics research lab further solidified her passion for biomechanics.

“Understanding how the body moves, how we can control our bodies and how we can mitigate injuries and perform at our best is at the heart of what I do,” Bossom explains. “It’s important in every facet of life, but in sport, especially professional sport, it is becoming a growing area of research and focus.”

According to Bossom, working for the Jays has also helped her build a community.

“It was a bit crazy to see how many Waterloo alumni work there,” Bossom says. “A lot of the people who I worked with were engineers, computer scientists and software developers, so maybe it isn’t that surprising that many were Waterloo alumni like me. I’m really proud to be a Kinesiology grad from Waterloo and am equally as proud to work with other alumni, so working alongside them was a little bit of community reconnecting.”

During her first internship, Bossom focused largely on supporting and analyzing minor league prospect performance data. This season, she’s excited to take on new challenges.

“Working with the Jays provided me with my first taste of professional sport,” Bossom says. “It got me really excited for this next opportunity and for the future. I like to ask questions and solve problems, which, I felt in my internship I was able to do that a lot so I’m really looking forward to continue to work with data and focus in on sports science and how it can improve performance.”