Aoife is Head of Department of Sport and Health Sciences in Technological University of the Shannon (TUS) Athlone, lead of the SHE Research Centre and co-founder of míde (an all island consortium for research on women in sport, exercise and physical activity). Aoife supervises PhD projects on sex and gender influences on sport and physical activity, many in the context of Gaelic games. Aoife is also a member of Sport Ireland’s Women in Sport Committee.

Topics covered:

• Míde research: More about this consortium, e.g., how started, aims, mission, development, what next; advice for others.
• Aoife's initial research on community-based physical activity and how this has evolved into more of a focus on sex and gender influences on sport and physical activity.
• Context of Gaelic games: Explanation and explanation of context, e.g., cultural context, community.
• Head of Department role and Sport Health and Exercise role. How Aoife combines/manages/finds time for all activities.
• Future research activities/goals.

Professor Elizabeth Pike has worked at the Universityof Hertfordshire since August 2017, where she is Professor and Head of the Institute of Sport, having previously worked at St Mary's University and the University of Chichester.

Elizabeth’s work takes as its focus issues of equality, diversity and inclusion in and through sport. She has published widely on these topics and has been an invited speaker, researcherand advisor at many Universities and conferences across the globe, including numerous media appearances. Her expertise has been recognised in her election to the Presidency of the International Sociology ofSport Association (ISSA), serving as a voluntary Executive Board member from 2008-2019.  During hertenure as President, she established the ISSA as a Charitable Incorporated Organisation. In 2019 she was awarded Fellowship of the RSA (Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce), in 2021 she was awarded the inaugural Life and Medical Sciences Athena Swan Award for her work to promote equality, in2023 she was identified by the Women in Sport and Exercise Academic Network (WiSEAN) as one of the top 10 individuals who have made a significant contribution to women's/girls’ sport and exercise and whoare inspirational in their field, and she is the 2024 Global Winner of the International Olympic Committee’s Gender Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Award.  She serves on theeditorial board of the journals International Review for the Sociology of Sport, Fisica and Ciencias, Olimpianos, and Frontiers.

Elizabeth has particular expertise in the area of gender and sport.  She is the co-founder of the AnitaWhite Foundation (AWF) and served as Chair of the AWF from 2011-2017.  During this time, she established partnerships with the Tanzanian National Sports Council to support women leaders in Tanzania, and with Females Achieving Brilliance to develop the Women’s Sports Leadership Academy which was shortlisted for the 2019 Beyond Sport Award for Gender Equality.  Since 2019, she has chaired the Management Group for the Women in Sport HighPerformance pathway (WISH), which is supported by Olympic Solidarity.  Elizabeth has published widely ontopics related to women and sport, is currently editing the Routledge book series on Women, Sport and PhysicalActivity, and was part of theresearch team that was commissioned to produce the 2014 and 2018 Progress Reports for the International Working Group on Women and Sport (IWG).  She is the ResearchLead for the IWG UK Secretariat 2022-2026, leading the Anita White Fund and serving as a member of the European Non-Government Sport Organisation's EQUIP (Equalityin Practice) Expert Advisory Panel in a voluntary capacity.

Elizabeth is also a leading academic in the sociological understanding of physical activity andageing.  She is Head of the Sport and Social InclusionResearch Group (SSIRG) which includes an international research team, policy-makers and practitioners, andformer Associate Editor of the Journal of Aging and Physical Activity.  She has been awarded ESRC grants to deliver research projects investigating physical activity for older women in the UK and Japan, and physical activityfor people living with dementia.  She was an invited member of the international research team that produced a Consensus Statement on Physical Activity and Ageing, and a member of the Alzheimer's Society Physical Activity Expert Advisory Group.

Topics discussed

• Research lead position for IWG: When/how first involved. Current developments.
• The IWG Insight Hub and how to get involved with the IWG.
• Anita White Foundation/International Women of Sport Movement origins/Women’s SportsLeadership Academy/Women in Sport High Performance Programme and impact.
• Research beginnings.
• Global projects and learning from the Global South.
• Balancing work – advice for others.
• Future goals and legacy.

Dr Malika Felton is a Senior Lecturer in Health and ExercisePhysiology within the Centre for Midwifery and Women’s Health at Bournemouth University. She completed herpost-doc at University of Exeter as part of the Moving Through Motherhood research group, running co-design workshops on supporting physical activity during and after pregnancy. This research won her the Early Career Researcher Award at the WiSEAN conference in 2023, and in 2024 she won the Best Oral Presentation for the SwimHer Research Network work on recommendations for cold water swimming and pregnancy. Malika also supports the Maternal and Infant Health Equity Research Centre (MIHERC) as partof the NIHR Challenge: Maternity Disparities Consortium.

• Possible reasons for winning WiSEAN conference awards. Advice for others.
• PhD: Summary of key findings and application.
• SwimHER research network and other networks (e.g., This Mum Moves/Active Pregnancy/MIHERC): How these came about/got involved.
• Menopause and physical activity (research from PhD student)

• Where next.

Melissa Lodge, MS

Melissa Lodge is an Interdisciplinary Health Sciences PhD candidate and graduate assistant at the University of Rhode Island. Her research focusses on female athlete physiology, particularly under conditions of low energy availability (LEA), such as Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport (REDs) and its associated impact on health and performance across thelifespan. She has presented her work at several regional, national and international conferences featuring work in female athletes on LEA outcomes. Melissa is interested in exploring intervention-based models, such as education, to improve outcomes for female athletes and girls in sports in the future. She is passionate about translating research to the athletic population and also runs the social media account @FED_collaborative on female athlete physiology, LEA/REDs, and eating disorders/disordered eating.

What we talked about:    

• FED collaborative – purpose, successes.
• Work forWiSEAN overview; personal usefulness.
• Publication,“Where are the girls, women, and female athletes in relative energy deficiencyin sport research?” Explanation of content.
• Publication(Risk of Low Energy Availability, Disordered Eating, Eating Disorders, and BoneStress Injuries in United States Female Track and Field: Original Research) keyfindings.
• Currentintervention programmes – knowledge and physiology.
• Dreamjob/goals following PhD success.

Stacey Pope is a professor based in the Department of Sport and Exercise Sciences at Durham University, UK. Professor Pope leads research in the area of women, football andinequalities. She is a leading guru in the area of women football fans. She has developed a new programme of work examining men’s responses to the growing visibility of women in sport and issues of sexism and misogyny. She also leads research on media coverage of the FIFA Women’s World Cup and fans of the England women’s team. Her research has led to her contributing as an invitedexpert for various UK Government inquiries for Culture, Media and Sport and Women and Equalities select committees. She is committed to the public engagement of her work, with her research regularly featuring in the nationaland international media.

Topics covered:

• Women fandom – experiences, change over time, internationally, differences inmen’s/women’s sport, as role models.

• Research used to inform policy (e.g., briefing paper DCMS and government inquiries);advice for others on how to start this process
• Recent paper on feminist research in a male-dominated world. Playing the numbers gameand the emotionless feminist
• Advice on funding
• Future plans.

Dr Emma Cowley is a postdoctoral researcher at the SHE Research Centre in TUS Athlone. She is a Marie Sklodowska-Curie alumna and earned her PhD from Liverpool John Moore’s University; her research focused on increasing adolescent girls' participation in physical activity. Emma leads the Invisible Sportswomen international research group which aims to address the gender data gap in sport and exercise science. Previously, she held a postdoc position at the Cardiometabolic laboratory at UNC Chapel Hill before moving to the UK where she was the lead for the DTA3/COFUND PhD Fellowship Programme.

In this episode, we talk about the following:

• Emma's identity/positionality
• Women’s experiences in academia: Findings, recommendations.
• Invisible Sportswomen paper and other related papers. What more can be done.
• Use of social media as a PhD student/as a postdoc student and other advice and opinionpieces – advice.
• Specific latest research on resistance training.
• Future research plans/goals.

Dr Stacey Emmonds is an Associate Professor in SportsPerformance in the Carnegie School of Sport at Leeds Beckett University. Dr Emmonds has extensive experience of working with professional sports teams, governing bodies and policy makers on consultancy and research projects. Shehas published over 50 research articles, book chapters andconference presentations in relation to sports performance and particularly women’s football. Alongside her research role, she works as a physical performance coach with the England women youth football teams as well as being an invited member of the UEFA Fitness for Football advisory board.  

We talk about:

• Stacey's journey into research – whether it wasit a natural progression from previous experience. Advice to others pursuing careers in football/research.

• Chapter in book (Women's Football) on talent identification and development – how this research has informed policy. What else is needed.
• Current research activities, e.g., English FA, ACL injury; how this research came about/evolved and key findings and actions.
• Collaborative work with other researchers and how to go about this/advice for others.
• Other research, e.g., in rugby and key findings and messages
• Future research-related plans. What more needs to be done.

Harry Meadley is an artist, researcher and skateboarder based in Leeds, UK, who initiates projects that, through inclusion, participation and co-production, seek to reclaim and reappropriate civic space. From municipal art galleries, universities and city centres to remote locations, Meadley’s socially engaged artistic practice aims to question not just the structures of power within society but of artistic production itself. Recent projects include the Civic kateboarding festival for marginalised gender skateboarders as part of Leeds 2023 Year of Culture and Free-for-All at Touchstones, Rochdale, which saw the entire gallery given over to the people of Rochdale to use however they wanted.

Things we talked about in this podcast:

• Background as an artist, researcher, skateboarder
• Overview of keynote at WiSEAN conference
• Change in skateboarding subculture and traditional male domain; how came up with idea of spaces alsobeing occupied by women/girls/gender minority? Safety issues for women/girls.
• Key messages from research –interviews, focus groups. PhD.
• Activities and link with art
• Funding: Advice for sports-typical individual approaching e.g., Arts Council, arts-based funding.
• Next projects

Dr Margie Davenport leads the Program for Pregnancy and Postpartum Health, and has published more than 175 manuscripts related to physical activity and sport during preconception, pregnancy and the postpartum period. Over the last decade she has worked with a number of National/International organisations including FIFA, the World Health Organization, International Olympic Committee, Sport Canada, the Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology and the American College of Sports Medicine, to support physical activity during and following pregnancy.

Dr Davenport was the Chair of the 2019 Canadian Guidelinefor Physical Activity throughout Pregnancy, and the 2025 Canadian Guideline for PhysicalActivity, Sedentary Behaviour and Sleep throughout the First Year Postpartum. This work led to the development of the Get Active Questionnaire for Pregnancy, Get ActiveQuestionnaire for Postpartum and the Canadian Society forExercise Physiology/American College of Sports Medicine Pre & Postnatal Exercise Specialization.

Content

• Current research studies being undertaken/ PhD student activities.

• Recent systematic reviews (e.g., PA, sleep, pregnancy, postpartum): Overview/insightful findings;importance of systematic reviews (e.g., in PhD study/grant application); planned reviews for future.
• Guidelines for assessing maternal cardiovascular physiology during pregnancy and postpartum: Lab advice.
• Recent qualitative work.
• Evidence-based policies for pregnancy, postpartum, athletes. How guidelines in Canada differ from other countries.

• Out of all research articles/studies, the most proud of.
• Future plans. Perceived barriers.

Dr Alex Culvin is the Director of Global Policy and StrategicRelations, Women’s Football at FIFPro, theglobal player union. Alex is also an academic at Leeds Beckett University at the Centre for Social Justice in Sport andSociety. She is a former professionalfootballer, who played in both Englandand Europe.

Items discussed

• Former footballer experience and own transition experience out of football. Barriers/opportunities as a former player.

• Research on work practices/professionalisation. Best practices in this area, globally.
• PhD work and interviews with; the current situation.
• Impact/how have policies been informed by research.
• FIFPro work.
• Research agendas in professional women’s football.
• Advice for others.
• Future studies.