Steph Doehler

Steph is an academic within the School of Education, Childhood, Youth, and Sport at the Open University. She joined the OU full time in February 2020 and has also worked as an Associate Lecturer since 2016.

Steph has undertaken the role of guest reviewer for several peer-reviewed journals, including International Journal of Sport Communication, Sport in Society, and Journal for Learning Development in Higher Education. She is also a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

Steph’s subject specialism is in the sociology of sport, focusing principally on the sports communication field.

Prior to joining the OU full time, Steph had several years’ lecturing experience within both Further and Higher Education. Steph has also worked as a Learning Development Manager within an awarding organisation, creating personal development awards and qualifications undertaken by more than 100,000 young people per year. Here, she set up the organisation's virtual learning environment and developed eLearning content for both learners and teachers. In this role she worked with several National Governing Bodies to develop their own suite of leadership programmes. Steph has also undertaken commissioned research projects for Sport England.

​From 2018-2020 Steph was a member of the Expert Physical Education Advisory Group, one of seventeen Expert Subject Advisory Groups established and funded by the Department for Education.

Research interests

Steph’s research contributions are predicated on the critical analysis within sports communication, focusing particularly on both traditional media framing and social-media framing. Research undertaken has explored this through the lenses of gender, athlete activism, and athlete mental health.

She also has interests in the social construction of athletes, and the concept of heroism in sport.

Steph predominantly uses qualitative designs within her research.

In 2023, she was selected to receive an Emerging Scholar Award presented by the international Sport & Society Network to acknowledge her outstanding contributions to the discipline as an early-career researcher.