Professor Holly Thorpe
IAS Annual Theme: Gestation
University of Waikato
Holly Thorpe is a Professor of Sport and Gender in Te Huataki Waiora / School of Health at the University of Waikato. An award-winning sociologist of sport, physical culture and gender, she is a recipient of both Fulbright and Leverhulme Fellowships.
In 2018, Professor Thorpe was awarded the Royal Society Early Career Research Excellence Award for Social Sciences, and made a Fellow of the North American Society for the Sociology of Sport. In 2021 she was awarded a Royal Society James Cook Fellowship for a two year project focused on women’s wellbeing through and beyond pandemic.
Professor Thorpe is passionate about doing research that meets the demands of understanding sport, health and wellbeing in a rapidly changing world. She continues to seek new innovations in social theory, qualitative methods, and strives to work across the disciplines to better understand the complexities of moving bodies and sporting cultures. Driven to do research that has real work impact, Professor Thorpe she works closely with an array of international and national sports organizations (e.g., International Olympic Committee, High Performance New Zealand, Sport New Zealand, Skateistan, Voice in Sport) to inform new practices, processes and policy development.
During their IAS Fellowship, Professor Thorpe is collaborating with Dr Emma Pullen from the School of Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences.