Joan is a Professor of Sport and Exercise Psychology in the School of Sport, Exercise and Rehabilitation Sciences and the Institute for Mental Health, at The University of Birmingham. She is internationally known for her expertise on the motivational climate, motivation, and determinants of optimal engagement and well-being within sport, exercise, and dance/the performing arts.   She also has extensive applied experience in the development of mental skills and self-regulation in athletes and artistic performers.
 
Joan is one of the most cited researchers in her discipline, publishing more than 350 scientific and applied papers, book chapters, and editing two books.  She is included in the 2023 Stanford University’s list of the World’s Top 2% most widely cited scientists and was named in the Research.com list of leading researchers in Psychology and one of the Best Female Scientists in the UK. She is also on the International Scientific Advisory Board for the Generation Healthy Kids project led by the University of Copenhagen and the University of Southern Denmark.
 
Joan is the recipient of an honorary doctoral degree from universities in Norway, Greece, Sweden and Mexico.  She received the Distinguished Scholar Award from the North American Society for the Psychology of Sport and Physical Activity and has been inducted into the International Society of Sport Psychology Hall of Fame, for her ‘contributions to research, practice and/or international leadership and the lasting impact …in sport and exercise psychology’. Joan holds Fellow Status in several international associations and is a Past-President of the European College of Sport Sciences, the Association of Applied Sport Psychology and Sport Psychology Division of the International Association of Applied Psychology. 

Joan has created the theory- and evidence-based Empowering CoachingTM family of training programmes which are being delivered to coaches (grassroots thru elite), parents, teachers and health care providers in the UK and abroad.  She is experienced in developing, implementing, and evaluating interventions in healthy as well as clinical populations in children and adults, and is on the International Scientific Advisory Board for the Generation Healthy Kids project in Denmark.