Francesca Cavallerio

Francesca is a Senior Lecturer in Sport and Exercise Psychology with a focus on youth sport and sport injury. Her research area relates to athletes’ welfare and she is particularly interested in using creative and arts-based methods to represent and communicate research findings to reach a non-academic audience.

Francesca joined ARU in Janury 2017, following her completion of a PhD in Sport Psychology, focusing on the psychosocial aspects affecting the wellbeing of current and retired gymnasts at St Mary’s University, Twickenham.

Before moving to the UK, Francesca lived in Italy, where she worked for 16 years as a L3 rhythmic gymnastics coach while studing for an MSc in Clinical Psychology. She then completed an MSc in Sport and Exercise Psychology in London in 2012 and decided to continue a career in academia.

Alongside her work at ARU, Francesca continues to consult with a few gymnastics club in Cambridgeshire, London, and the South of England. These experiences are important both from a teaching perspective – being able to provide examples from real life scenarios – as well as from a research perspective.

Research interests:
Psychosocial aspects influencing health and well-being of (youth) athletes
Abuse in (youth) sport
The psychology of sport injury
Youth sport
Athletic retirement
Sustainability in high performance sport
Qualitative research methods / Arts based research