Professor Mark Williams

Professor Williams has previously held senior leadership positions in the UK (Head of Life Sciences, Brunel University London) and Australia (Associate Dean for Research, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Sydney), and the US (Chair of Health and Kinesiology, University of Utah).

Mark is also a Chartered Psychologist and Scientist and is accredited by BASES to work with high-performance athletes. He has been a Visiting Professor at several prestigious institutions including Florida State University, University of Florida, University of Calgary, University of British Columbia, University of the Mediterranean, University of Salzburg, Auburn University, and KU Leuven.

Professor Williams’ research interests focus on the neural and psychological mechanisms underpinning the acquisition and development of expertise.

He has received around $15 million in external funding from research councils in Australia (Australian Research Council - ARC) and the United Kingdom (Economic and Social Research Council; Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council  -  BBSRC;  British  Academy,  Royal Society),  industry  partners, such as Nike and Umbro, and the Department of Defence, SOCOM, and DARPA in the United States, as well as governing  bodies of sport (e.g., The FA, FIFA, UEFA, UK Sport, USOC) and professional sports teams (e.g., Liverpool, Everton, West Ham).

Mark has mentored 12 Post-Doctoral Research Fellows and supervised almost 60 doctoral students.

Mark is Editor-in-Chief for the Journal of Sports Sciences, the Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, and the journal Human Movement Science. He has sat on the editorial boards of the Scandinavian Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport, Frontiers of Cognition, and Frontiers in Psychology: Performance Science, and Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology and has acted as a Guest Editor for several special issues of Journal of Sport Sciences, Journal of Motor Behavior, Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, Neuropsychologica, and Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied.

Mark has acted as a reviewer for more than 50 journals in the exercise and sports sciences, experimental psychology, education, and cognitive/behavioural neurosciences and 15 funding agencies in North America, Europe, and Asia. He is a Fellow of the British Psychological Society, National Academy of Kinesiology, British Association of Sport and Exercise Science, and the European College of Sports Sciences.

Professor Williams has published almost 300 journal articles in peer-reviewed outlets in numerous fields including exercise and sports science, experimental psychology, neuroscience and medicine. He has written 20 books, almost 100 book chapters, 60 professional articles, over a 100 journal abstracts, and he has delivered around 300 keynote and invited lectures in 32 different countries.