Author biographies

This special topic of the Journal of Sport and Health Science (JSHS) focused on Children’s motor skills, physical activity, and health promotion was edited by Drs. Zan Gao and Ru Wang. It includes 1 editorial, 6 original articles, and 1 commentary contributed by research scientists from USA, Portugal, Australia, Italy, and China. Below, we present the biographies of the guest editors and the main authors.

Dr. Zan Gao is a faculty member and the Director of Physical Activity Epidemiology Laboratory at University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. His research has primarily focused on promoting health and preventing diseases through field-based physical activity interventions with emerging technologies such as active video games, health wearables, and virtual reality. He has published 3 books, 27 book chapters and 101 research articles in peer-reviewed journals such as Obesity Review and American Journal of Preventive Medicine. He has been the principal investigator of 2 National Institutes of Health research grants and a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Grant. He has received 4 Young Scholar Awards from various international and national organizations. He also serves as the Editorial Board Member for the International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, Games for Health Journal, Journal of Sport and Health Science, and Journal of Clinical Medicine, Associate Editor for Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sports, and served as the Editor-in-Chief for Journal of Research, Teaching, and Media in Kinesiology. He is currently the Fellow of American College of Sports Medicine, and the Fellow of SHAPE America Research Council.

Dr. Ru Wang is a full professor at School of Kinesiology, Shanghai University of Sport, China, and the Dean at School of Kinesiology. In 2011, she joined the School of Sports and Health Sciences at the University of Jyväskylä in Finland to participate in the CALEX study on the growth characteristics of bone, fat and muscle in childhood, puberty and adolescence. Later she went to the School of Public Health at Indiana University in the USA, and studied nutrition epidemiology to examine the relationships among nutrition, diet and metabolic diseases in 2015. Her research interests include the effects of hypoxic training on glucose and lipid metabolism, and health promotion. She has published over 45 scientific peer-reviewed papers and edited/written 3 books in past 5 years. She received many funds and awards, such as National Natural Science Foundation of China, Technology Award of China Sports Science Society Science and Young Teacher Award by Fok Ying Tong Education Foundation.

Dr. Leah E. Robinson, is the Chair and associate professor of movement science in the School of Kinesiology and a research associate professor in the Center for Human Growth and Development at the University of Michigan. As the Director of Child Movement, Activity, and Developmental Health Laboratory, she focused on a developmental perspective to motor skill acquisition, physical activity, and developmental health in preschool- and school-age children. She has published over 75 peer-reviewed articles, 6 book chapters, and 2 policy reports and has served on several scientific committees (e.g.,National Academy of Sciences). She has secured over 4 million dollars in extramural funding from the National Institutes of Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. She is a Fellow in the American College of Sports Medicine.Dr. Darla Castelli is a full professor in the Department of Kinesiology and Health Education at the University of Texas at Austin and holds the Catherine Mae Parker Centennial Professorship in Education. She has been working with school-age youth in physical activity settings for more than 25 years, leading several physical activity interventions (e.g., Kinetic Kidz, FITKids1,FITKids2, Active + Healthy = Forever Fit, Fitness4Everyone). She has received teaching awards in both the public school (i.e.,Maine Physical Education Teacher of the Year) and higher education (i.e., University of Illinois Teaching Excellence Award,University of Texas at Austin, Kinesiology and Health Education Graduate Teaching Award). As a fellow in the SHAPE America Research Council and past Young Scholar Award recipient from NAKPEHE and AEISEP, her research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, American Dietetic Foundation, and U.S. Department of Education. She has been a member of 2 Institute of Medicine Committees on Fitness Measures and Health Outcomes in Youth and Physical Activity and Physical Education in the School Environment.Dr. David F. Stodden is a professor and Director of the Human Performance & Development Laboratory in the Department of Physical Education at the University of South Carolina. His research focuses on the development of motor competence and its impact on physical activity, physical fitness, perceived competence and obesity across the lifespan. He has published over 80 research articles and book chapters and his research has been funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health, the National Association for Sport and Physical Education and Society for Health and Physical Educators among other sources. He is an internationally renowned expert in the field of motor development and has presented 32 national and international keynote lectures and invited presentations.

Dr. Laura Bellows is an associate professor in the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition at Colorado State University. Her research is focused on the development of eating habits and physical activity patterns in early childhood, interventions in the early care setting, and the influence of parental behaviors and the home environment on the development of these behaviors. She received her BS in exercise science and health promotion from Miami University, MPH in human nutrition from the University of Michigan and Ph.D. in community nutrition from Colorado State University. In 2011, She was awarded the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), the highest honor bestowed by the United States government on science and engineering professionals in the early stages of their independent research careers.

Dr. Amanda Staiano is a faculty member and Director of the Pediatric Obesity & Health Behavior Laboratory at Pennington Biomedical Research Center. She is a developmental psychologist in pediatric obesity with an interest in technology-mediated physical activity interventions and the integration of these technologies into the behavioral treatment of childhood obesity. She recently served as PI for a family weight management program, and she currently serves as PI of 2 epidemiological studies of children’s body composition and physical activity. Due to her specific interest in using technology to improve the delivery and acceptance of weight management and physical activity counseling, she was recently PI of a randomized controlled trial testing the efficacy of a 6-month, home-based physical activity trial for children’s weight management delivered via exergames and videochat counseling.

Dr. Lisa Michele Barnett had over 10 years in health promotion before academia. She completed a Bachelor in Social Science (Edith Cowan University), a Master’s in Public Health (University of New South Wales) and her Ph.D. in Public Health (University of Sydney). She was then successful with prestigious research fellowships to engage in full time research: a National Health and Medical Research Council Early Career Fellowship (2011-2014), and an Alfred Deakin Research Fellowship (2015-2016). Currently she is Course Leader of Honours in Health Promotion, Public Health and Health Science and a Member of the Institute for Physical Activity and Nutrition Research at Deakin University. She is President-Elect of the International Motor Development Research Consortium, and a Sports Medicine Australia Fellow.She has a career total more than 130 publications and is an Associate Editor for the Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport.

Dr. Elizabeth (Kip) Webster, is an assistant professor in the School of Kinesiology at Louisiana State University. Her research interests are focused on physical activity behaviors and motor skill competency in pediatric populations. Her research primarily examines school-based programs that target positive health-related outcomes, such as reducing childhood obesity and increasing physical activity, fitness, motor skill competency, and psychological variables related to health. She has assisted with the revisions of the 3rd edition of the Test of Gross Motor Development (TGMD), along with other projects that focused on: a) infant physical activity/motor competency and b) NHANES data pertaining to preschool motor skill proficiency.

Dr. Nan Zeng is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition at Colorado State University. He earned his Ph.D. in kinesiology from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. Dr. Zeng’s research has primarily been focusing on the development, implementation, evaluation of the technology-based physical activity interventions. Within this broad area he is also interested in understanding the correlates/determinants of fundamental motor skills in preschool-aged children and their relationships with childhood obesity. He has authored more than 30 peer-reviewed publications and 40 scientific abstracts in the field of physical activity and health. He is an active member of Society of Health and Physical Educators (SHAPE America), American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), and International Society of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity (ISBNPA).

Dr. Carlos Luz is an assistant professor at Lisbon Higher Education School. He teaches motor development and didactics of physical education. He holds a Ph.D. in human kinetics (2016), a Master in high performance training (2011), and a degree in sport science (2005) all from the Faculty of Human Kinetics, University of Lisbon (Portugal). In the past years,he presented his work in about 25 national and international conferences, and he published several book chapters and articles in peer-reviewed journals such as PLoS One, Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport, Journal of Sports Sciences,etc. In the past, he was a physical education teacher and a soccer coach in different primary schools and sports clubs in the area of Lisbon. His current research interests are related with healthy lifestyles, motor competence and health related fitness.