Prof. Dr. Fatma Saçlı Uzunöz is Head of GCHA and is currently working at the Department of Coaching Education and the Founding Director of the School of Sports Science and Technology at Nevşehir Hacı Bektaş Veli University, Cappadocia, Turkey. She earned her master’s and PhD degrees in sport sciences and technology from Hacettepe University, Ankara. She is a member of international and national scientific associations. Her research interests include teaching models and methods, teacher qualities, critical thinking in sport sciences, initiatives in physical activity and health promotion, and creative drama in education. She has published in this area in national and international peer review journals and presented scientific papers at various national and international conferences. She has contributed to chapters in scientific books and also completed scientific projects in the field of sport sciences.
Dr. Saçlı Uzunöz has been conducting collaborative projects for promoting physical activity using technology since 2014 in the Cappadocia region of Turkey. At the beginning, she started with two schools by participating in the Brain Breaks®️Global Project. After collaborating with administrators of the city, university, and all primary and secondary schools all over the city, she expanded the study throughout the schools of the Cappadocia region. Not only that, but also she encouraged students from her faculty to create Brain Breaks® videos representing Turkish culture. She has also been regularly using Brain Breaks®️ videos while teaching her classes to promote the health and wellness of university students. She brought all the stakeholders together in a short time and she included technology supported physical activity programs into higher education to promote physical activity at her university. Dr. Saçlı Uzunöz continues to work on expanding cooperation and studies to promote a culture of movement worldwide.
Meeting with the principal and teacher from the first primary school of the Brain Breaks®️ Project, Nevşehir, 2014
Students at primary school started to be physically active with Brain Breaks®️ in their classrooms, Nevşehir, 2014
Meeting with Director of Provincial Education, Principals and Teachers to expand the project throughout the primary and secondary schools all over the city in Nevşehir, 2015 Our motto was: “Active schools…Healthy Kids… with Brain Breaks®️ Exercises”
Principals and teachers from all over the schools in Nevşehir are doing physical activity at the meetings by using Brain Breaks®️ videos, 2015
Student teachers from Faculty of Sport Sciences are dancing for creating “Fire-Fly Dance” video for Brain Breaks®️ in Zelve town of Cappadocia, 2015
Presentation was made on motives for physical activity participation 4th ICPESS 2015, Jakarta, Indonesia
Traditional costumes were represented by FLVs from each country 4th ICPESS 2015, Jakarta, Indonesia
The results of the best Brain Breaks®️ practices from all over the Cappadocia was presented GoFPEP 2016, Ankara, Türkiye
Traditional costumes were represented by FLVs from each country GoFPEP 2016, Ankara, Türkiye
She, with her 4-month-old daughter, Alpin, participated in BRICSCESS 2017, Santos, Brazil
Inclusion of technology supported physical activity programs into the higher education was presented, 5th ICPESS 2018, Capadocia, Türkiye
My deepest respect and appreciations to Professor Mingkai Chin 5th ICPESS 2018, Capadocia, Türkiye
Khanyile Dlamini is currently a lecturer in the Department of Sports Science and Coaching in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. She teaches sports science classes for undergraduate students. Her interests and specialization are in the field of Physical Activity in children and adolescents. Her experiences in the lectureship and research roles at NUST, which require hours of hard work and ability to work with others from diverse backgrounds and skill sets, has seen her join the GCHA role. She is excited and looks forward to networking with other leaders globally and learning from them whilst she shares her own experiences from a low resource setting. She believes that she will make a positive impact on the country and Africa as a whole while also gaining valuable experience and skills.
She is a passionate and driven sports scientist with diverse professional experience. She is pursuing a PhD in Sports Science from the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, where her research will focus on physical activity and physical fitness of Zimbabwean adolescents. This interest in health and wellness began during her Master's studies at the same institution, where she investigated Physical Activity levels and body mass index among adolescents in different socioeconomic backgrounds.
Khanyile Dlamini has experience in working in community projects to promote health and physical activity. She is currently involved; as a Co-investigator in the ‘Nutrition, Physical Fitness and Physical activity levels of Zimbabwean children and youth national project which is a collaboration between NUST and the Ministry of Education. This same project has been scaled up to secondary scholars and will be followed by infant children in 2025. Since 2021, Khanyile has also been involved in capacity building of Zimbabwean PE teachers as a facilitator of various workshops conducted by the Zimbabwean Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education in their drive to promote teaching of Quality Physical Education.
Khanyile poses with Shamva primary school children and their PE teachers after data collection in 2022
Khanyile is highly experienced in conducting fitness testing using field-based methods. She currently leads her students in fitness testing of various sports teams in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe and also conducts workshops to pass on the skill to Zimbabwean teachers.
NUST Sports scientists posed with the Zimbabwean Women’s national team technical staff after fitness testing players in camp ahead of their maiden appearance at the 2016 Olympics.
Also, Khanyile has participated in various workshops and courses, including the International Society for the Advancement of Kinanthropometry Level 2 certification and is a certified FIVB (Federation Internationale de Volleyball) Level 1 coach. She also has done the FIFA Futuro program for referee physical coaches, and this has seen her work with referees in Southern Africa for several years as a Physical Fitness Coach.
Khanyile presenting to International Referees at the 2020 Men’s U20 COSAFA tournament in Port Elizabeth, South Africa.
Dr. Agata Korcz is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Didactics of Physical Activity at the Poznan University of Physical Education (Poland). Her research interests focus on the didactics of Physical education (process and quality of Physical education, effective teaching in Physical education, Olympic education at schools), determinants of physical activity, interventions to promote physical activity together with a healthy lifestyle, mental health and well-being. Dr. Korcz is particularly focused on children and young people. Fitness and traditional sports and games are also something she is passionate about. She attended the International Seminar on Olympic Studies for Postgraduate Students at International Olympic Academy in Olympia (Greece). She is also a member of the National Olympic Academy of Poland.
Her research interests focus on didactics of physical education (process and quality of physical education, effective teaching in physical education, Olympic education at schools), determinants of physical activity, mental health and well-being. She is particularly focused on children and adolescents.
For the very first time, she will be representing Poland (under the supervision of Prof. Michal Bronikowski) as a member of the Future Leader Program (FLV) at the BRICSCESS 2017 conference in Brazil.
For many years she was associated with the Sports Rehabilitation Association “START” (2007-2013) where she gained amazing experience during work with disabled children and adults as a staff member on summer camps and others sport events.
In years 2005-2009 she worked as a research assistant in the Comenius Regio Project “Olympic and youth integration through education”. The aim of this project, in both its partner regions (Poland and Bulgaria), was to use the Olympism for the social integration of both the able-bodied and physically and mentally disabled youth, as well as to improve the general health of the youth through physical activity.
Dr. Agata Glapa has experience in organizing international, national and local workshops and events. For example, she organized two conferences combined with workshops with world-renowned yoga teachers. The first one with Dr. Mukund V. Bhole from India (2013) entitled: “The importance of working with the breath and breathing movements in traditional yoga in the light of modern neuro-psycho-physiology”. The second one with Dr. Norman E. Sjoman from Canada (2014) entitled „An overview of over 40 years of research and practice in the field of yoga”.
In 2015 she took a part in the Grant project of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education under the Academic Centre of the Creativity - “Active not only on-line” led by Prof. Michal Bronikowski, where Dr. Glapa was working as a research assistant and coordinator of the workshops and training. On 2015 she co-organized the International IT Workshop “Physical Education and modern technologies” where Prof. Dr. Ming-kai Chin (President and Founder of the Foundation of Global Community Health (GCH)) and Prof. Dr. Elke Knisel (Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg) were invited as keynote presenters.
Fitness, Polish and foreign traditional plays and games, working at schools with children and with disabled people is also something Dr. Agata Glapa is passionate about. During her work in Department of Didactics of Physical Activity, she was involved in different events for children and adolescents from the city of Poznan and other areas.
Mingming Guo is a Ph.D student in the College of Physical Education and Health, East China Normal University. His research interests focus on integrating information technology into physical education and health promotion.
Guo Mingming obtained his master's degree in 2018, and then worked as a FAE Engineer in a science and technology company serving school sports. During his tenure as FAE engineer, his main work is to help primary and secondary schools to make school physical education work more information-based, such as using heart rate monitoring equipment in physical education teaching, using AI in students' physical fitness testing work, so as to make physical education teachers' work more intelligent.
In 2019, Guo Mingming returned to East China Normal University as a research assistant. Under the guidance of Professor Wang xiaozan, he was mainly responsible for the overall work of the research on the Construction of China Children's and Adolescents' Sports Fitness Big Data Platform, a major project of China's Social Science Fund. The main purpose of the project is to build a big data platform related to sports and health of children and adolescents in China, so as to prepare for the reform of sports and health work for children and adolescents.
In 2020, Guo Mingming began to carry out independent research under the guidance of Professor Wang xiaozan. At present, his two projects have been funded by China Social Science Foundation and Shanghai Education Commission. The main purpose of the two projects is to integrate information technology, especially new information technology, such as AI, IOT, 5G, etc., into the physical education of children and adolescents health promotion work.
Since 2015, Guo Mingming, as a core member of the team, has successfully held a number of domestic or international conferences related to children's and adolescents' health, such as the World Congress on Teaching, Learning, and Curriculum in Physical Education in 2019.
In addition, he also actively participated in international conferences related to children's and adolescents' health, and shared his research in the form of poster or oral, such as SHAPE America, ICDCPE, ICSPAH, APCESS etc..
Dr Susannah STEVENS (Susie) is currently the lead subject advisor for Physical Education New Zealand (PENZ). PENZ is the national, professional organisation for physical educators in New Zealand. Susie leads a team of advisors working at the community level with school teachers, and at a political level with government organisations such as Sport New Zealand, the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Education. She is the Project Manager for the UC Child Well-being Research Institute in the College of Education, Health and Human Development at the University of Canterbury. Susie has been awarded multiple educational awards, including an International Olympic Literary Prize, First Class Honours for her MEd and a UC Doctoral Scholarship.
Susie is a registered secondary school physical education and health educator, researcher and academic. Her areas of interest are child well-being, holistic development, physical education pedagogy, Olympism, physical activity and the joy of movement. Susie’s Master of Education was a study on the educative value of sport; and her PhD in Health Sciences focused on the joy of movement, well-being and pedagogy in secondary school physical education. Her research combines philosophical, sociological and pedagogical elements.
Susie has also represented New Zealand at numerous educational programmes at the International Olympic Academy in Olympia, Greece and is an active member of the New Zealand Centre for Olympic Studies. She represents New Zealand and Oceania as a member of the Future Leader/Volunteer (FLV) Programme under the leadership of Professor Ian Culpan.
