Our Work

HLST Olympics SIG Steering Group

Elesa Argent is Senior Lecturer in Sports Studies and Head of Consultancy Services (School of Life Sciences) at the University of Hertfordshire. Her research interests include the development of character and leadership via sports participation, the transference of sport skills to a corporate environment, and the development of the sport of American football in Europe. The latter is facilitated through her role as Head of Research for the British Universities American Football League. Elesa gained her PhD in Sport Management in 2006 from Loughborough University.

John Buswell is Principal Lecturer in the Department of Leisure, Tourism and Hospitality Management at the University of Gloucestershire. He has been involved with the Hospitality, Leisure, Sport and Tourism Network since its inception in 2000, as the Liaison Officer for Leisure, and is now Assistant Director. He is a member of the Open University Validation and Awards Committee.

His research interests and publications are in pedagogy and in the area of service delivery and service quality in leisure, tourism and sport. He has co-authored a book on service quality in leisure and tourism and edited two other books on leisure management. He was, between 2004 and 2007, Director of the phase 5 FDTL Project ‘Meta: From PDP to CPD'. He has also recently co-edited a book on student-centred learning. John is a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of the HLST's Journal of Hospitality, Leisure, Sport and Tourism Education (JoHLSTE).

Donna Chambers holds a PhD in Tourism from Brunel University and is currently a Lecturer in Tourism Studies and Programme Manager for the MSc International Events Management at the University of Surrey. She previously spent five years as a Lecturer in Tourism and Programme Manager for postgraduate tourism, hospitality and festival and events management programmes at Edinburgh Napier University. Donna also has experience in the tourism public sector, having worked for five years with the Ministry responsible for Tourism in Jamaica. Donna was on the organising committee for the Leisure Studies Association Conference titled Festivals and Events: Beyond Economic Impacts, held at Edinburgh Napier University in 2005 and also Chaired a panel on the Postmodern Festival at the Conference on the Arts in Society held at the University of Edinburgh in 2006. She did a Keynote Address titled An agenda for cutting edge research in tourism at the Cutting Edge Research in Tourism Conference held at the University of Surrey, 6-8 June 2006 and has also undertaken a consultancy project for VisitScotland on the Authentic Tourist which was completed in 2005. She served on the advisory panel for an AHRC funded seminar series on 'Qualitative methods of enquiry into the Arts Consumption Experience and its impacts', held at the Humanities Research Institute, University of Sheffield in November 2008. Donna has undertaken visiting lectureships at the University of the West Indies, Barbados, The University of Wageningen, The Netherlands and the University of Plymouth, Devon. She has, and continues to referee papers for Annals of Tourism Research, Tourism Management and the International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management. She is currently external examiner for the MA Event and Exhibitions Management at Birmingham City University and the BA Events Management programme at the University of Plymouth.

Her research interests include critical and innovative approaches to tourism research, cultural and heritage tourism and more recently, festivals. She has published in these areas and presented conference papers at several national and international conferences. She recently co-edited a book titled New Perspectives in Caribbean Tourism which was published by New York/London, Routledge in 2008.

Dikaia Chatziefstathiou is Senior Lecturer in Sociology of Sport and Leisure in the Department of Sport Science, Tourism and Leisure at Canterbury Christ Church University. She completed her undergraduate studies in Greece on the area of Sport Science and Physical Education and then, having been awarded a grant from the Greek government, she moved to the UK to pursue her postgraduate studies with Loughborough University. She is the inaugural winner of Coubertin Prize 2008 awarded by the International Pierre de Coubertin Committee and the International Olympic Committee, and her most recent work on Regional Games has also been funded by the IOC. She is broadly interested in international sport, globalisation and Olympic research and her research is specifically concerned with the political economy of the modern Olympic Movement as well as the politics underpinning the history and development of modern sport.

Her current research interests include Japan's And China's revived interests in the Olympic Movement, diffusion of Olympic sport through regional games, and a review of the evidence base for developing a health and physical activity participation legacy from the 2012 Olympic Games.

Donna de Haan is Senior Lecturer in Sport Management at the University of Worcester and the Olympic engagement coordinator for the University. She teaches across a range of sport management related modules at Undergraduate and Post Graduate level including, Sport Event Management, Sport Entrepreneurship and Sport Development.

She is interested in all aspects of the Olympics and Paralympics and was lucky enough to work with the British Equestrian Team in Hong Kong during the Beijing Games. Specifically her research interest is related to the effect of sport separation in a multi- sport environment, similarities and differences between Olympic and Paralympic experience, and the history and development of equestrian sport.

Holly Henderson is Lecturer of Events Management in the Centre for Events and Sports Research (CESR), School of Services Management, Bournemouth University. Holly has been involved with teaching, researching and managing programmes in the Marine sector for over ten years. Holly has a keen research interest in the 2012 Sailing Regatta impacts, volunteering and spectator engagement. Holly also has an interest in watersports and extreme sports tourism. She has a 1st class honours degree in Maritime Leisure Management from Southampton Solent University.

Holly completed her PhD in Public Health and Epidemiology (An Investigation into the Epidemiological Surveillance of Inland Water Incidents in the United Kingdom) at the University of Birmingham in 2005, whilst working for the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. She has presented papers and posters at the World Drowning Congress, the International Water Safety and Boating Conference, the Irish Water Safety Congress, the National Water Safety Congress and the European Conference on Injury Prevention and Safety Promotion. Holly has also been part of the UK Delegation at the Maritime Safety Committee and the Maritime Environmental Protection Committee of the International Maritime Organisation.

Ian Pickup is Director of Sport & Wellbeing at Roehampton University, having previously worked as Principal Lecturer and Subject Leader for Physical Education. Ian previously played and coached professional rugby at Harlequins Rugby Club, taught in schools, within Further Education, and worked as a development officer for the Rugby Football Union. In 2006 Ian founded 'Move,' an innovative sports-based social inclusion project which transfers life skills from the sports context to empower young people to engage with educational and vocational opportunities.

Ian's work is not limited to the UK. He has supported practitioners working in post-disaster contexts and has delivered workshops and keynote lectures at international conferences and seminars. Ian was the UK partner in an EU funded Early Years physical education project which brought together teachers and academics from Greece, Finland, Cyprus, Italy and England. Ian has authored texts to support teachers and recently and co-authored a British Education Research Association Academic Review entitled ‘The Educational Benefits Claimed for Physical Education and School Sport'.

Ian was awarded a National Teaching Fellowship by the Higher Education Academy in 2007 and elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures & Commerce the same year. Ian joined the Board of Pro Active South London, the sub regional sports partnership, in September 2008 and currently chairs the PASL workforce development group. He chaired the South London Lifelong Learning Network's Sport Leisure and Tourism sector group from 2007 to 2009.

William Ross is Web Development Assistant at the Higher Education Academy's Hospitality, Leisure, Sport, and Tourism (HLST) and Business, Management, Accountancy and Finance (BMAF) subject centres, based at Oxford Brookes University. He is responsible for updating and maintaining centres' web-based materials. William will be helping to design and maintain the Olympics SIG website. William is currently studying for a Certificate in Web Applications Development at the Open University, and previously received a BA(hons) in English and History from the University of East Anglia.