Will Dixon
Will joins us at the Peter Harrison Centre as a Doctoral Researcher, supervised by Dr Daniel Butcher, Professor Gary Page and Professor Vicky Tolfrey. Will’s PhD offers an exciting collaboration between the PHC, The School of Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences and The School of Aeronautical and Automotive Engineering. Working closely with RGK wheelchairs, Will’s PhD investigates the aerodynamics around athletes and wheelchairs during racing, focusing on how drag varies with changing body position and whilst following other athletes.
Hannah Johnston
Hannah is also one of our newest Doctoral Researchers, supervised by Professor Vicky Tolfrey and Dr Richard Ferguson. Specialising in physiology and sport performance, Hannah’s PhD aims to discover the main physiological challenges faced by trained athletes with cerebral palsy, what implications this has on training/competition, and the potential strategies to mitigate these consequences and further develop performance.
Ellie-May Storr
Already a familiar face in the PHC, previous research assistant Ellie-May Storr began her role as a Doctoral Researcher in July. Supervised by Dr Jamie Barker, Dr Carolyn Plateau and Professor Vicky Tolfrey, Ellie-May’s research is looking at the experiences, psychological stressors and implications of (de)classification in para sport, and the influences on athlete and athlete support personal mental health and well-being.
Lara Brittain
Also starting in July, Lara Brittain joined the centre as a Doctoral Researcher supervised by Professor Vicky Tolfrey and Dr Stuart McErlain-Naylor. In collaboration with UKSI, Lara is investigating “What it takes to win” in wheelchair racing, by using data driven approaches to optimise wheelchair racing performance. Throughout her PhD Lara will be working closely with UK Athletics
Ollie Clemo
Ollie is a MSc student studying Physiology and Nutrition at Loughborough University and joins us at the PHC as an applied sport science placement student. Ollie’s work will include providing physiology support to British Triathlon’s Paralympic Pathway, as well as PHC to understand match demands in wheelchair basketball, tennis, and rugby.
Natasha Mehta
Natasha is joining the PHC as a Doctoral Researcher under the supervision of Dr Christof Leicht and Dr Ian Taylor. Alongside Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS, Natasha will be researching the effects of ischaemic preconditioning on upper body exercise performance in people with SCI and introducing this concept as a pre-exercise intervention.
Join us in welcoming all of our new starters to the centre! Offering a broad range of research areas, we are excited to follow their progress.