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CELIA BRACKENRIDGE Hon Dr Sci, PhD, MA, BEd (Hons), Cantab, AcSS, FBASES

e.mail: celia.brackenridge@brunel.ac.uk

Celia Brackenridge retired in August 2010 from her full time post as Director of the Centre for Youth Sport and Athlete Welfare at Brunel University, West London, UK and is now member of the Brunel Centre for Sport, Health and Wellbeing (BCoSHaW). Since October 2011 she has been working part-time in her capacity as Chair of the Local Organising Committee for the 2012 International Convention on Science, Education and Medicine in Sport (ICSEMIS 2012 www.icsemis2012.com ), the conference that traditionally precedes each Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games.

After qualifying as a Physical Education teacher at Bedford College of PE Celia became the first physical education student in the UK to achieve a 1st Class Honours degree, which she achieved at Cambridge University. She taught at Bournemouth School for Girls and then Sheffield Hallam and Gloucestershire Universities between 1973 and 2001. She was an honorary visiting professor at the German Sports University (1994), Smith College Massachussetts (2004) and the Centre for Applied Childhood Studies at Huddersfield University (2002-05). Before joining Brunel University in 2005, Celia ran her own research-based consultancy company, specialising in child protection and gender equity issues in sport and leisure.

During her time as an active researcher, Celia carried out major studies of women and leadership in leisure management and child protection in sport. She researched abuse and harassment issues in sport from the late 1980s onwards and was Programme Consultant to the IOC Medical Commission Consensus Statement on Sexual Harassment and Abuse in Sport (2007) and to the UNICEF working group on violence against children in sport (2007-08). She served on the Research Committee of the National Organisation for the Treatment of Abusers and also chaired the Research Task Force of the NSPCC/Sport England Child Protection in Sport Unit for many years. Celia chaired the Leisure Studies Association from 1993-1995 and edited the journal Leisure Studies from 1995-1997. She has authored several books including Spoilsports: Understanding and Preventing Sexual Exploitation in Sport, published by Routledge in 2001. Her most recent book was edited with Daniel Rhind at Brunel University and published on-line in August 2010, entitled Elite Child Athlete Welfare: International perspectives. London: Brunel University Press, ISBN: 978-1-902316-83-3, available at
http://www.brunel.ac.uk/about/acad/sse/sseres/sseresearchcentres/youthsport/birnaw

Following her Doctor of Science award by Bedfordshire University in 2009, Celia was made a Fellow of the British Association of Sport and Exercise Sciences in 2010 and awarded an Honorary Fellowship of Chichester University in the same year. In 2007 she received the US Women's Sports Foundation's Darlene Kluka Research Award and in 2008 she received the Distinguished International Scholar Award of the Association for Applied Sport Psychology.

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