Research
Academics
Research
Fellows
Dr Xiao Liang
Xiao is a Postdoctoral researcher in Sport Policy and Management.
Her principal research interests are sport policy and major event legacy/impact. She focuses specifically on the impact of major events on the socioeconomic development of local small and medium-sized enterprises.
Her research is distinguished by its interdisciplinary nature and by it extending the target of event impact studies from the traditional macro-level beneficiaries to the micro-level beneficiaries.
Twitter = @liangxiaosz
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Dr Andrew Hayes
Postdoctoral researcher in sport integrity and clean sport. PhD in performance enhancing drug use in sport and education. Other academic interests include sport policy and major event legacy. Member of the WADA Social Science Research Expert Advisory Group and Chair of the UK Athletics Athletes’ Commission. Current GB international distance runner.
Barnaby Carter
Barnaby is a final year PhD candidate, currently awaiting VIVA, with a specialism in anabolic-androgenic steroid dependence. Other academic interests include image and performance enhancing drugs (IPEDs) and associated harms, muscle dysmorphia, and motivations for IPED use. Future ambitions include becoming a full-time researcher and lecturer in the field of IPEDs to aid in the development of education around IPED associated harm reduction.
Twitter = @ph_res
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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.
​Emma Louise baker
Emma is a MRes graduate with a specialism in stakeholder perceptions of sustainability in sporting mega-events. Interests lie predominantly in legacies of sporting mega-events and ways that sustainability can be incorporated in sport both within the events' organisation and delivery, and through educational initatives to fans. She hopes to pursue a PhD studentship at the University of Birmingham researching fan perceptions of sustainability in Formula 1.
Dr Abdullah Alharbi
Abdullah studied his PhD at the University of Birmingham detecting emotional intensity in text.​
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.
​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.