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Sport and Health Sciences

The School of Sport and Health Sciences invites applications in the following areas:

Sport and Leisure Cultures

Embodied sport and leisure spaces: The spaces our bodies occupy, the spaces shaping our bodies, and the various shapes of our bodies

Supervisors: Dan Burdsey, Tom Carter, Paul Gilchrist

Sport and development: practices, policies, and critiques of sport and leisure’s roles in community development, professional development, or international development (SDP)
Supervisors: Tom Carter, Alex Channon, Mark Doidge, Marc Keech, Anastasiya Khomutova

Representative sport and leisure bodies: the various ways ethnicity, gender, race, sexualities, and other social categorizations affect and shape sport and the ways sport shapes and challenges those categorizations. 
Supervisors: Dan Burdsey, Alex Channon, Mark Doidge, Simon McEnnis, Marlon Moncrieffe

Movement(s) of and within sport and leisure: Asking questions regarding how these kinds movements shape physical activity and how are physical activities used by various kinds of movements. These can be:

a. The meanings of physical movements of participants, namely how we sense and make sense of our sport and leisure selves and worlds, e.g. dance, yoga, mountaineering, and other forms of physical activity
Supervisors: Tom Carter, Paul Gilchrist
b. Migrations and mobilities,
Supervisors: Dan Burdsey, Tom Carter, Anastasiya Khomutova
c. Social movements, e.g., ramblers and rights to roam
Supervisors: Tom Carter, Paul Gilchrist
d. Environmental movements, e.g. surfers against sewage, green washing and green spaces
Supervisor: Mark Doidge
e. Political movements, either entrenched in sport, e.g., football fan networks, or the use of sport as intervention sites by various sociopolitical groups, e.g. Black Lives Matter or protests at recent World Cup.
Supervisors: Dan Burdsey, Tom Carter, Mark Doidge

Governance and policy of sport and leisure

Projects under this theme will explore how sport is used to fulfil various policy goals, both in relation to the development of sport itself and in areas nominally outside of that domain, e.g. radicalism, crime, education. Projects will focus on provision around sport, leisure, health and physical activity at international, national or local governmental and non-governmental levels; and organisations including the UN, IOC or other international bodies, national ministries and national governing bodies and local government.

Supervisors: Tom Carter, Mark Doidge, Marc Keech, Marlon Moncrieffe

Sport and Exercise Science and Sports Medicine

Evaluating physiological mechanisms associated with acute heat mitigation strategies to help the elderly prepare for heat waves and improve health outcomes.

Supervisors: Neil Maxwell, Mark Hayes, Peter Watt, Jeanne Dekerle, Nicholas Smeeton

Ageing, weight regulation and mental health: the effect of chronic energy balance and eating behaviour disturbances on physical and mental health.

Supervisors: Ifigeneia Giannopoulou, Peter Watt, Kathy Martyn, Marie-Ann van Ginkel

Dietary fibre and the role of its structure in obesity and health

Projects in this area will explore the relationships between the structure of dietary fibre, its intake, and the consequences for health issues in people. Projects can address issues on the chemical and structural characterisation of dietary fibre or plant cell walls or issues pertaining to the digestion dynamics of food with fibre. Projects could also address issues around food security, food policy and reduced waste or more efficient food utilization.

Supervisors: Marie-Ann van Ginkel, Peter Watt, Ifigeneia Giannopoulou, Kathy Martyn

Towards a better understanding of the neurophysiological mechanisms underpinning human perceptions (pain, effort, affective valence, fatigue as examples) and behaviours (adherence, tolerance, pacing for example) around physical exercise in sport, health or diseases.

Supervisors: Jeanne Dekerle, Nicholas Smeeton, Mark Hayes

Functional genomics, data mining and modelling of large quantitative data, health data science combining informatics and epidemiology, data linkage of patients’ electronic health records across healthcare settings.

Supervisor: Guan Wang

Health

Sexual and reproductive health

Improvement of sexual and reproductive health of individuals and populations with a particular focus on sexually transmitted infections and HIV, interventions for sexual health promotion, sexual wellbeing, sexuality, abortion, contraception, and gender based violence.

Supervisors: Catherine Aicken, Nigel Sherriff, Natalie Edelman, Alexandra Sawyer, Jorg Huber, Laetitia Zeeman, Kay Aranda

Nutrition and wellbeing

Research that focuses on the relationships between food, nutrition, health, and wellbeing e.g. development and evaluation of interventions designed to improve food choice behaviours, physical activity, and health; determinants of maternal, child and adolescent diet; breastfeeding; diabetes

Supervisors: Sarah Kehoe, Jorg Huber, Nigel Sherriff

Determinants of health and health inequalities

Research that addresses key issues related to poor health outcomes (including mental health) and health inequalities; the social determinants of health inequalities; inequalities in access to health and social care services for ‘vulnerable’ populations.

Supervisors: Catherine Aicken, Nigel Sherriff, Natalie Edelman, Alexandra Sawyer, Jorg Huber, Laetitia Zeeman, Sarah Kehoe, Kay Aranda, Jane Thomas

Living well in older age

Research which generates new understandings of the meaning of wellbeing in a range of contexts; understanding and improving wellbeing in older age with a focus on community based and residential care living, in addition to acute services; key issues for individuals and families in living well with, for example, frailty, dementia, disability and long-term conditions

Supervisors: Kay Aranda, Kathleen Galvin, Theo Fotis, Kathy Martyn, Catherine Aicken, Nigel Sherriff, Nina Stewart, Angela Glynn, Clair Hebron, Jorg Huber, Leonard Henry-Joseph, Kitty Suddick

See also: Health and Wellbeing studentships in the School of Applied Sciences

When you have approached a potential supervisor and are ready to submit your online application via our portal, select Research degree > Doctoral College > [SEARCH NOW] > Sport and Health Sciences studentships