Welcome to the webpage for the 2026 Wharton Moneyball Academy course on data analysis in R. In this part of the course, you will learn the tools necessary to apply the concepts you learned in the morning lectures while analyzing real sports datasets using the R programming language. Please bookmark this site and check back regularly before the program starts for updates. Below, you will find important information about setting up your system and installing the necessary software, as well as a brief schedule for the course.

Prior to starting

This summer, you’ll learn how to analyze sports data using R, a free and widely used programming language for statistics, data analysis, and visualization. We will also use RStudio, an integrated development environment that makes writing and running R code easier.

To help us start analyzing data right away, please install R and RStudio before the first day. Instructions for installing both programs and setting up your computer are covered in Lecture 0.

Note: tablets and Chromebooks may not have sufficient computing power to run R and RStudio. We highly recommend using a laptop or desktop.

After completing Lecture 0, Problem Set 0 will give you a brief introduction to R through simple exercises and motivating questions for the morning lectures. Don’t worry if you don’t finish everything before the first day. On the first morning, you’ll meet with your project team and TAs to discuss the material.

Please check back periodically for updates as we approach the start of camp.

Daily Schedule

Afternoons are devoted to the programming component of the camp. Each day, instructors will spend the first hour introducing new R functionality and programming concepts.

Lecture notes will be available on this website under the Academy and Training Camp tabs. These notes will include worked code examples and explanations. After the lecture, you will work with your project team and TA on problem sets that review and reinforce the day’s material.

About the Instructors

Professor Abraham (Adi) Wyner is Professor of Statistics and Data Science, chair of the Statistics Undergraduate Program and Academic Director of the Wharton Sports Analytics and Business Initiative (WSABI). Professor Wyner is an expert at Probability Models and Statistics, Information Theory and Applied Statistics and Machine Learning. He has published more than 50 articles in leading journals in many different fields, including Applied Statistics, Applied Probability, Finance, Information Theory, Computer Science and Bioinformatics. Professor Wyner has participated in numerous consulting projects in various businesses. He was one the earliest consultants for TiVo, Inc, where he helped to develop early personalization software. Professor Wyner created the University of Pennsylvania’s Undergraduate Minor in Statistics and oversaw the program’s growth from just a handful of graduates to hundreds. He also co-led the creation of the very popular Business Analytics major for Wharton MBAs and Wharton Undergraduates. In 2017, Professor Wyner created the Undergraduate Sports Research Group to encourage research by Penn undergraduates. Dr. Wyner’s pursuit of statistics as a career was fostered in childhood by his interest with Baseball. Professionally, he first engaged sports analytics in 2006 when he received a grant from ESPN The Magazine to study player evaluation in Major League Baseball. He is the founder of the Wharton MoneyBall Academy a 3-week summer program in sports statistics and computing for gifted high school juniors and seniors. Dr. Wyner is a co-host and co-creator of the Wharton MoneyBall radio show and podcast which is aired on Sirius XM.

Jonathan Pipping-Gamón (JP) is a 3rd-year PhD student in the Department of Statistics & Data Science, where he heads the WSABI Student Research Team. His research interests include applied probability, statistical machine learning, causal inference, and selective inference, with applications to sports, economics, and public health. In sports, his research work spans soccer, football, tennis, baseball, hockey, horse racing, and beyond. You can view some of his public work here. JP is also passionate about teaching and has written curriculum and co-taught Wharton’s Moneyball Programs since 2024. Outside of work, he enjoys listening to music, biking, attending concerts, and keeping up with the sports world.