
IWG Members
Dr Barbara Bell

Former Senior Lecturer in Sport Development at Manchester Metropolitan University, Department of Sport and Exercise Sciences.
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Associate Professor at the Rosen College of Hospitality Management, University of Central Florida, and is the Editor-in-Chief of the leading journal for the study and analysis of events and festivals: Event Management

Dr Mike Duignan
IWG Members from UoB
IWG Research Assistants
Maria Karamani

International Working Group Coordinator.
Maria studies her PhD at the University of Birmingham and her research focuses on empowering the voices of students with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) by implementing an innovative approach the Inclusive Inquiry (II) as a research tool in special schools.
Her research interests lies with the area of special needs and how to empower the voices of SEND population with the aim to better understand disabled students’ lived experiences of inclusion/exclusion in schools. Other academic interests involve disability research and how to advance methodological knowledge about ways to conduct participatory research inclusively.
Zhaoyu Duan

Zhaoyu is a first year PhD student. His research interests are the benefits of sport/physical activity participation, particularly the social benefits and mental health development. He will focus on disadvantaged populations to make his own contribution to public health and sustainable social development.
​Qi Wang

International Working Group Coordinator.
Qi is a first-year Ph.D. student at the University of Birmingham, dedicated to exploring the participation legacies and long-term impacts of major sporting events. Her primary research focuses on the participation legacies stemming from the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics and the 2022 Birmingham Commonwealth Games.