Dr. Melissa Hunfalvay
Chief Science Officer & Co-Founder
Dr. Melissa Hunfalvay is a former professional tennis athlete, internationally recognized coach, scientist, co-founder of RightEye, and visionary. Originally from Australia, Melissa played on the professional tennis circuit in the United States, Australia, and Europe.
As a professional coach in the 1990’s she worked with many male and female athletes ranked in the top 20 on the world junior circuit including Wimbledon, French, and U.S. Open junior champions. She has also coached wheelchair tennis U.S. Open champions and Paralympic champions. In 1998, she was the youngest female coach in NCAA1 history. In 2006, she was part of a team ranked number one in the world for coaching staff. She is now a member of the United States Tennis Associations’ Sport Science Committee.
She began her scientific career, 20 years ago, by examining human performance with the goal of understanding where professional versus amateur athlete’s look using eye tracking technology. Dr. Hunfalvay completed her Doctorate in Kinesiology (Sport Science and Psychology) from the University of Virginia and master’s in clinical and counseling psychology from Campbell University and is completing her master’s in data science from the University of Maryland.
She found that performance could be improved, based on where a person looked, at critical moments in time. Using the same technology and scientific methodology she has created dozens of products used to examine athletic performance, vision disorders, neurological disorders and reading disorders. She has also developed therapies and training programs based on eye-tracking assessments.
She consulted for teams and individual athletes in the NFL, NHL, NBA, MLB, PGA, ATP, WTA as well as Military Special Forces, Special Operations Command, and other professionals including police officers, brain surgeons and NASA astronauts.
With the introduction of cloud-based processing, big data analytics, machine learning and artificial intelligence, she has developed techniques using eye tracking and other forms of data to understand trends and develop further insights. This has led to various health, wellness, and clinical outcomes from data.
Dr. Hunfalvay is unique in that her background enables her to build products based on scientific rigor and big data analytics that are practical and easy to understand by the end user. Her expertise solves scientific questions using technology to better understand the human condition.
She has published many works from peer reviewed scientific articles to practical coaching and clinical applications to technology articles and book chapters. To view this work go to Research Gate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Melissa_Hunfalvay2. She has presented at many conferences throughout the United States, Europe, and Australia.
Dr. Hunfalvay is a Certified Mental Performance Consultant with the Association for Applied Sport Psychology and is listed on the United States Olympic Committee Sport Psychology Registry. She is a Professor at The Carrick Institute for Clinical Neuroscience and Rehabilitation, Center for Human Performance.
As RightEye’s Chief Science Officer, Melissa is responsible for all new and existing product development. She leads the company’s product, data, and scientific vision. Melissa is the Product Owner and has developed all company Intellectual Property and Regulatory Compliance.
As RightEye’s Co-Founder she is driven by her passion to build solutions to positively impact everyday lives. Dr. Hunfalvay also serves as a company board member.
Linked in profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melissahunfalvay/