Dr Ciara Everard, Lecturer in Sport Psychology and Health Sciences at The University of Roehampton, London, has been announced as joint winner of the 2023 PhD Award in the Division of Sport and Exercise Psychology from The British Psychological Society (BPS)
Speaking on this achievement, Dr Everard said: "I'm very pleased to be joint winner of the PhD Award from the BPS Sport and Exercise Psychology division. A massive thank you to my incredible supervisory team for their continuous guidance and support throughout this project, Professor Ross Wadey, Dr Melissa Day, and Dr Karen Howells."
Dr Everard’s thesis focuses on the psychology of sports injury. Working with injured athletes for over 18 months, Ciara’s work explores the types of stories that athletes talk about their injury experiences and the impact of these stories on their thoughts, feelings and behaviours towards injury. Her PhD identified six sports injury narratives which have been translated into a video format and shared with athletes, coaches, and practitioners for direct impact.
Ciara is a trained physiotherapist and her research interests at present focus on psychologically supporting injured athletes and working with practitioners to better facilitate the hospital to home transition for people with amputations. Her teaching focuses on sport psychology and qualitative research methods.
The University of Roehampton, London offers a range of programmes including BSc Sports and Exercise Sciences and BSc Sports Therapy, where students gain specialist, practical skills to play a part in in optimising sports performance, preventing injury and helping athletes with recovery.