Neil Armstrong is Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Professor of Paediatric Physiology at Exeter University. He earned his BEd and MSc at Loughborough and PhD and DSc at Exeter. He is a former Chair of BASES and PEA, he chaired the Sport Sciences Panel in the first two Research Assessment Exercises and he currently chairs the European Group of Paediatric Work Physiology and the SW Olympics Legacy Project. Neil led the physiology team which developed the IOC policy on training the elite young athlete and was one of three international consultants who led the development of the IOC’s policy on the promotion of children’s health and well-being through sport. He has authored/edited 13 books and over 600 other academic publications. His latest book, ‘The Elite Young Athlete’ was published in 2011. Neil has been invited to present his research in 41 countries and has led invited seminars to MPs and government ministers in the House of Commons. His research won the Queen’s Anniversary Prize for Higher Education, the only time the prize has been awarded for research in sport science and medicine. In his youth Neil represented England at U15, U18 and University level and played professional football for 10 years.
Chris Byrne gained his PhD in exercise physiology in 2001 from the University of Wales, Bangor. From 2001-2004 he held the position of research scientist in military physiology with Singapore’s Defence Medical and Environmental Research Institute. Chris has subsequently held lecturing posts in sport and exercise physiology at two UK universities, most recently at the University of Exeter. Chris has conducted field-based research investigating body temperature regulation during mass-participation distance running races in environmental heat through collaborations with scientists at DMERI Singapore and the UCT/MRC Research Unit for Exercise Science and Sports Medicine, University of Cape Town, South Africa. These studies have included the Singapore half and full-marathons, the 56 km Two Oceans marathon in Cape Town, and the 89 km Comrades marathon in Durban, South Africa. Chris’ research has been supported by travel grants from the Royal Society and the Physiology Society.
Karl Cooke is the LTA Sports Science Manager based at the National Tennis Centre in Roehampton, in this role Karl provides the strategic direction for all Sports Science support services and applied research in British Tennis. The LTA Sports Science team’s vision is to provide the highest quality, impactful and most accessible scientific support to both junior and professional players and their coaches. Karl joined the LTA in 2007 after 10 years of providing applied Sports Science support to athletes and coaches across a broad spectrum of professional and Olympic sports. Karl’s PhD research focused on the interaction of the physiological demands of tennis and stroke performance that included 2 research projects for the International Tennis Federation’s Technical Commission the findings of which later provided the scientific evidence for changes to the Rules of Tennis. Karl’s practitioner work focuses on optimising training adaptations by providing strategies for increasing training efficiency and monitoring the balance between stress and recovery. Karl combines his applied practise with a programme of applied physiological research with numerous papers and expert reviewer contributions for leading peer review journals in Sports Science and Medicine.
Roger Emery studied medicine at St. Thomas's Hospital Medical School, London, graduating in 1979. He trained in London, Cambridge and Hong Kong. He was awarded a Wellcome Surgical Fellowship at the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology and wrote his master's thesis on "Metabolic Studies on Normal and Osteoporotic Bone" in 1987. He was awarded the Zimmer Travelling Fellowship by the British Orthopaedic Association in 1989 and the first SECEC/ ASES Travelling Fellowship by the European Society for Surgery of the Shoulder and Elbow in 1993. In 1991, he was appointed consultant orthopaedic surgeon and honorary Senior Lecturer at the Central Middlesex Hospital and moved to St Mary's Hospital in 1993.His clinical interest is shoulder and elbow surgery and created an active clinical group at St Mary's Hospital, London. He has served in many roles including President of the British Elbow and Shoulder Society and International Editor of the Journal of Shoulder and Elbow Surgery. He currently sits on the International Board of Shoulder and Elbow Surgery as an ex-officio member.
Ernest Schilders is one of the leading hip arthroscopy surgeons in the UK, with expertise in groin and adductor problems in athletes, and has spent more than 15 years researching on this subject. He has treated players from the majority of the Premiership and Championship football teams. Professor Ernest Schilders had his training as an orthopaedic surgeon in Belgium and the United States. He started his professional career at the University Hospital in Antwerp and was appointed as a consultant in Bradford Teaching Hospitals between 1999 and 2011. In 2010 he founded the London Hip Arthroscopy Centre based at the Wellington Hospital in London. Professor Schilders is a reviewer for various peer-reviewed medical journals. In 2008, Ernest Schilders was appointed Visiting Professor in Sports Medicine at Leeds Metropolitan University. He lectures on several sports medicine courses and is also one of the founding members of the Faculty of Sports and Exercise Medicine UK. The research he conducts is mainly focused on femoroacetabular impingement, the athletic hip and adductor problems in athletes. He has given hundreds of presentations on these topics, nationally and internationally.
Michael Turner is currently the Chief Medical Adviser to the Lawn Tennis Association (LTA) and the British Horseracing Authority (BHA*). After qualifying at St. Thomas’ Hospital, he joined the British Ski Federation as their first Honorary Medical Advisor and attended the Winter Olympic Games at Calgary in 1988. In 1989 he joined the British Olympic Association (BOA) as deputy Director of Medical Services and following the 1992 Winter Games at Albertville, he was appointed Director of Medical Services at the British Olympic Association. He was the BOA Chief Medical Officer for the GB Team at the Lillehammer Winter Games in 1994. He was a member of the International Medical Committee of FIS (International Ski Federation) from 1989-1999 but relinquished all duties for skiing in 1999. In 1992, he was approached by the Jockey Club to undertake a review of the medical arrangements in horse racing and was subsequently appointed as their Chief Medical Adviser in March 1993. Following his resignation from the BOA in1994, he was recruited as the first Chief Medical Officer at the Lawn Tennis Association and currently divides his time between horse racing and tennis. He is a keen skier and his particular areas of interest are safety in high-risk sports, protective equipment in sport, concussion, child protection and doping control.
*BHA. For over 250 years (1750-2006) British Horseracing was run by the Jockey Club but governance was transferred to the Horseracing Regulatory Authority (HRA) in 2006 and subsequently to the BHA in 2007.
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