2024 Sports Engagement Ambassadors announced
Following a successful pilot year in 2023, for 2024 we have recruited a second cohort of Sports Engagement Ambassadors. They will develop and deliver activities that connect research with various sport audiences. This programme is modelled after the established Engagement Ambassador scheme run by our home department (Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging / Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences), which is coordinated by our team members Carinne Piekema, Jacqueline Pumphrey, and Hanna Smyth. The Sports Engagement Ambassadors will have access to a year-long series of training sessions, which will help them understand key engagement concepts and receive guided support in developing activities.
The 2024 ambassadors are:
Andrew Spires is a DPhil student in the Department of Biology researching the evolution of social behaviours in animals. His current work uses fruit flies to study female aggression and competition. Beyond academia, he currently plays for, and captains, the Linacre/Corpus Christi MCR football team as well as referee college football. As a sports engagement ambassador, he hopes to make science research accessible and enjoyable through the unifying medium of football.
Holly Jenkins is a postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Education. Her research focuses on how the brain learns and processes language, and the unconscious mechanisms that support this. Thanks to her older brother, Holly has played football most of her life, and currently plays in goal for Oxford City FC. Holly is keen to explore ways of making science more accessible to the public, and how sport can be used to encourage this. Twitter: @HollEJenkins
Izabelle Lovgren's research involves using advanced magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) techniques to better understand what happens in the brain after a head injury. By doing so, she is hoping to identify imaging findings (and other factors such as injury mechanism) that can help us predict how well a child will recover after head trauma, with a particular focus on sports-related injuries. Sports have always been a big part of her life, with her current focus being on long-distance running. Her motivation for becoming a Sports Engagement Ambassador stems from her eagerness to combine her passion for neuroscience and sports with public engagement activities. @izabellelovgren
M Garrido is a plant biochemistry DPhil studying low-oxygen sensing and signalling in potatoes. They're the practical lead for Oxford University Wheelchair Basketball and are passionate about bringing people who were ruled out of sports due to a physical disability or injury (back) into activity. When not in the lab or on the court, they can usually be found in bed, recovering from the outsized energy expenditure that comes with trying to access sports, education and the workplace while disabled.
RuoHan Liu is an MRes student at the Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging. Her master experiment and proposed PhD experiment roam around on how mental toughness and enduring through pain or discomfort can sometimes bring a person a greater sense of satisfaction or reward. As well as how this mentality could relate to sport injuries, especially from overexertion. Her biggest joy in life comes from outdoor sports; she loves endurance sports, which is why triathlon came naturally to her, as well as sport climbing or skiing. From becoming a sports ambassador, she hopes to acquire more skills on how to raise awareness via sports, as well as be able to interact with more people who love sports or who are interested in sport related research. Instagram: @Yangyang7755
Cover image: byfortytwo via Unsplash
