Author biographies

This special topic of the Journal of Sport and Health Science (JSHS) focused on Exercise, cognitive function, and brain:Update and future was edited by Drs. Jennifer L. Etnier and Yu-Kai Chang. It includes 1 guest editorial, 3 original articles,and 1 review article contributed by research scientists from USA; Taiwan, China; Brazil; UK; and France. Below, we present the biographies of the guest editors and the main authors.

Dr. Jennifer L. Etnier is a Professor and Associate Head of the Department of Kinesiology at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She received her degrees from the University of Tennessee (B.S.), University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill (M.A.), and Arizona State University (Ph.D.). Dr. Etnier’s research interests lie in the area of exercise and cognitive performance. She is currently conducting an R01 focused on the effects of physical activity on cognitive performance, blood-based biomarkers, and cerebral structure and function of adults at risk for Alzheimer’s disease. She served as President of the North American Society for the Psychology of Sport and Physical Activity and Editor of the Journal of Aging and Physical Activity (JAPA). She currently serves as an editorial board member for Sport, Exercise, and Performance Psychology; JAPA; Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology; Journal of Sport and Health Science; and Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise.

Dr. Yu-Kai Chang is Research Chair Professor in the Department of Physical Education at National Taiwan Normal University. Dr. Chang is also a managing council member of both the International Society of Sport Psychology (ISSP) and the Asian-South Pacific Association of Sport Psychology (ASPASP). Dr. Chang’s research focuses on sport and exercise psychology, as conducted through cognitive neuroscience approaches. Dr.Chang is the recipient of Young Scholar Awards from both the ISSP and the North American Society for the Psychology of Sport and Physical Activity; and an Outstanding Dissertation Award from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, USA. Dr. Chang serves also as editor, and section editor, and sits on the editorial boards of several journals listed in the SCI, SSCI, and TSSCI.

Dr. Charles Hillman began his career in 2000 at the University of Illinois, where he was a Professor in the Department of Kinesiology and Community Health. He continued his career in 2016 at Northeastern University, where he holds appointments in the Department of Psychology and the Department of Physical Therapy, Movement, and Rehabilitation Sciences. Dr. Hillman has more than 200 publications and 11 book chapters on physical activity and brain health. His work has been funded by the National Institutes of Health and several private sponsors. He served as a member of the 2018 Physical Activity Guidelines for American’s Scientific Advisory Committee.

Dr. Dominika Pindus is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Kinesiology and Community Health at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and an Affiliate Faculty at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology. She received a Ph.D. from the School of Sport, Exercise, and Health Sciences at Loughborough University, UK, which focused on objectively measured physical activity and cognitive control in children. Her research centers on the implications of physical activity for cognitive control in children and young adults.

Dr. Kirk Erickson is Director and Principal Investigator of the Brain Aging and Cognitive Health Laboratory at the University of Pittsburgh and Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition. Dr. Erickson studies the impact of physical activity on brain health. He has been funded by National Institutes of Health, the Alzheimer’s Association, and has been awarded the Chancellor’s Distinguished Research Award from the University of Pittsburgh. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research and Distinguished Scientist at Murdoch University. Dr. Erickson was a member of the 2018 Physical Activity Guidelines Advisory Committee,and Chair of the Brain Health Subcommittee.

Dr. João Bento-Torres was an undergraduate in physical education and received his Master’s and Ph.D.degrees in neuroscience from Federal University of Pará, Brazil. He was also a fellow of CAPES where he worked as a post doc at the University of Pittsburgh. He is a Professor at Federal University of Pará where is a Master’s and Doctoral tutor in the Human Movement Science and Mathematical and Science Education graduate programs. Dr. Bento-Torres is the Regional Coordinator of the National Network of Science and Education-RNEC and has been conducting research on the neuroscience of physical activity and neurodegenerative diseases and aging.

Panteleimon Ekkekakis is a Professor of exercise psychology at the Department of Kinesiology at Iowa State University in the USA. His research examines affective (pleasure vs. displeasure) responses to exercise.He has proposed the Dual-Mode Theory (DMT), to explain the dose-response relation between exercise intensity and affective responses, and the Affective Reflective Theory (ART, with Prof. Ralf Brand), to explain the interaction of affective and reflective processes in determining sedentary and exercise behavior. Prof.Ekkekakis is the author of The Measurement of Affect, Mood, and Emotion (Cambridge University Press,2013), editor-in-chief of the Handbook of Physical Activity and Mental Health (Routledge, 2013), and coeditor of the Psychobiology of Physical Activity (Human Kinetics, 2006).

Dr. Leighton Jones is a Senior Lecturer at Sheffield Hallam University, UK. He was awarded his Ph.D. from Brunel University London in 2014, is accredited by the British Association of Sport and Exercise Sciences,and is a Chartered Scientist with the UK Science Council. Dr. Jones is a sport and exercise scientist with a specialism in exercise psychology and has a keen interest in motivation and behavior change in exercise and physical activity. His overarching research aim is to examine strategies that engender a more consistently pleasant exercise experience.

Dr. Michel Audiffren is a Full Professor with the Sport Science Faculty at the University of Poitiers, France.He received his Ph.D. in Sport Sciences, specialty: Cognitive Neurosciences, from the University of Aix-Marseille 2. He is a member of the Research Centre on Cognition and Learning (UMR CNRS 7295) and of the team “Exercise, Sensori-motor processes, and Cognition”. His primary research interest focuses on the acute and chronic positive effects of exercise on cognitive functions and cognitive aging. More recently, his works shifted slightly toward the effect of mental fatigue in effortful tasks.