Academic staff in the School of Sport, Exercise and Rehabilitation Sciences

Professor Sarah Aldred is an exercise biochemist interested in oxidative stress. She is interested in how exercise can perturb redox homeostasis in both health and disease. Sarah has worked with young and old, and with those suffering from psychosis and schizophrenia, cardiovascular disease and dementia. 

Sarah is Head of the School of Sport, Exercise and Rehabilitation Sciences.

Alex’s work centres on understanding how exercise can prime the immune system to improve patient responses to treatment and reduce disease activity. Alex has worked with patients with type-1 diabetes, systemic lupus erythematosus, rheumatoid arthritis, cancer, chronic kidney disease and obesity to examine the anti-inflammatory effects of exercise in these populations.

Professor Wallis is an Exercise Scientist with major interests in Nutrition and Metabolism. He studies dietary influences on exercise metabolism, with a particular focus on macronutrients and their roles in performance, training adaptation and health.

Dr Welch is a physiologist with expertise in the neural control of breathing, respiratory mechanics, diaphragm fatigue, phrenic nerve stimulation, and exercise physiology. His research focus is to understand how breathing: a) responds and adapts to physiological stressors such as exercise, disease and hypoxia; b) interacts with other body systems; and c) impacts human health and performance.

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Caroline has predominantly worked as a physiotherapist across a wide range of elite and national team sports. This has included working in the English Rugby Union Premiership for seven season, four seasons working at the Football Association with their various national teams and attending European championships and World Cups. Presently alongside her university teaching responsibilities she is a ...

Dr Martin Whitham is an integrative physiologist primarily interested in endocrinology and tissue cross-talk in the context of exercise. Since physical activity represents a broad and effective preventative treatment for a host of non-communicable diseases, the main focus of his group’s work is to examine the role small vesicles, exosomes and proteins play in inter-tissue signalling during ...

Matthew Willett is a lecturer in physiotherapy with a research interest in pain mechanisms, sports medicine, and patient physical activity behaviours. He is the programme lead of the MSc Exercise and Sports Medicine (Football), and contributes to the musculoskeletal teaching across several post graduate programmes offered within the School of Sport, Exercise and Rehabilitation Sciences.

Sarah is internationally known for her work in imagery to enhance performance and wellbeing. She has published over 30 papers related to imagery ability and imagery use. She has a particular interest and focus in using mental imagery to elicit more facilitative appraisals and responses to stress.

Dr Janet Withall is an experienced researcher in the field of the promotion of active and healthy ageing.  She currently manages the NIHR funded ACE randomized controlled trial investigating ways of supporting older people achieving meaningful and lasting lifestyle changes and living healthier and fulfilling lives.