The Deborah L. Feltz Lecture on Sport, Exercise, and Human Movement Science in Africa

Deborah L. Feltz, is a retired and distinguished professor of Kinesiology at Michigan State University. She joined the faculty in Kinesiology at Michigan State University in 1980 and served as chairperson from 1989-2012. She has spent her career conducting research on the relationship between efficacy beliefs and physical activity, including efficacy beliefs of coaches of youth sports in Africa. She has also supervised and mentored many graduate students who did research in these areas, two of whom came from Botswana.  Feltz sees the benefit of building collaborative research partnerships with scholars from African countries to improve the health and well-being of Africans and advance science.

Therefore, in 2017, Feltz created an endowment to support a lecture series on Sport, Exercise, and Human Movement Science in Africa at the Department of Kinesiology in the College of Education, known as the Deborah L. Feltz Lecture on Sport, Exercise, and Human Movement Science in Africa. She hopes that this lecture series will facilitate that collaboration and dissemination of sport, exercise, and movement science research, as well as promote global understanding and the growth of the disciplines across the African continent.

Presenter:

Andries Monyeki is a Professor in the Department of Human Movements Sciences and Director of Research Center for Physical Activity, Sport, and Recreation (PhASRec) at the Potchefstroom Campus of the University of North-West, South Africa. He has over 120 peer reviewed publications and has received many awards, including the South African Medical Research Council Silver Medal for an Emerging Scientist in 2014, and the Janssen-Cilag Award for the best article of the year in 2003. He is a member of numerous national and international organizations such as the Healthy Kids South Africa, International Society for Physical Activity and Health, and African Physical Activity Network.

Professor Monyeki’s research focuses on health-related fitness, physical activity epidemiology and growth and motor development as well as body composition across populations. In this lecture, he will provide an overview of current evidence on research examining the role of physical activity on health outcomes especially in children and adolescents in the South African context, the evolution and current standing of the research, as well as challenges and opportunities for future research.