Team

Sylvie Parent, PhD, is a Professor in the Department of Physical Education at Université Laval. Her research focuses on violence in sport. More specifically, her current work focuses on four (4) themes: 1) measuring the prevalence of violence toward athletes and its associated risk factors, 2) the impact of violence in sport on the physical and mental health of young participants, 3) violence experienced by young officials in the course of their duties, and 4) various contexts of victimization of athletes (university environment, sexual minorities). In 2020, Dr. Parent was awarded the responsibility of directing the Research Chair on Safety and Integrity in Sport. The mission of the Chair is to prevent violence in sport by mobilizing a pa

William Simard has been a Research Assistant since March 2022, role in which he has carried out various tasks relating to the Chair’s research projects, like the Projet ÉTIC. William Simard will lead group discussions on the project aiming to analyze Quebec coaches’ training needs regarding athletes’ maltreatment. He holds a bachelor in Intervention sportive from Université Laval. William is currently a psychopedagogy master’s student under the supervision of Andrea Woodburn and Sylvie Parent. He is interested in coaches’ training and maltreatment prevention in a sport context.

Elisabeth is a Master’s student in psychopedagogy at Université Laval under the supervision of Drs. Sylvie Parent and Nadine Deslauriers-Varin. Her thesis focuses on the modus operandi of coaches who have committed sexual abuse in a sport context. She is also involved in the Étude sur les expériences des jeunes officiels du Québec (EJOQ) and the Étude sur le vécu des athlètes du Québec (ÉVAQ). Her research interests focus on the different types of violence in sport (sexual, psychological, physical, negligence) and crimes of sexual nature.

Julia Topart is in her second year of her bachelor’s degree in psychology at Laval University. She has been working as a Research Assistant since February 2022. She manages the SIMS Chair’s social media, particularly the Facebook page, and updates the website daily. Julia is also a student-athlete in Ultimate Frisbee. Her research interests include psychological difficulties related to the practice of sport, concussions as well as neglect, sexual, psychological, physical abuse in sport. She wishes to continue her doctoral studies in psychology related to these subjects.

Véronique Boudreault is an assistant professor in sport psychology at the Faculty of Science at Université de Sherbrooke since 2020. Her research focuses on the mental health of athletes in relation to sport-specific risk and protective factors. She is currently conducting research on the impact of COVID-19 on the mental health of Canadian Olympic athletes and Quebec university student-athletes. She is also interested in mental performance skills and emotional management in sport. As a former cross-country ski athlete and coach, she completed specialized training combining clinical psychology and sport science at Université Laval. In parallel to her academic career, Véronique is a psychologist and mental performance consultant for the Canad

Isabelle Daigneault is a clinician psychologist and a professor for the psychology department at Université de Montréal. She directs the research laboratory on health trajectories and resilience of young people who have been sexually assaulted. In addition of the SIMS Chair, she is a member of other research teams like the Interdisciplinary Research Centre on Intimate Relationship Problems and Sexual Abuse (CRIPCAS), the Équipe Violence Sexuelle et Santé (ÉVISSA), the Chaire de recherche sur les violences sexistes et sexuelles en milieu d’enseignement supérieur (VSMESS) and the Canadian Consortium on Child and Youth Trauma.

Nadine Deslauriers-Varin is a criminology professor at the School of Social Work and Criminology at Université Laval, and acts as a director of undergraduate’s criminology programs. She is an affiliated researcher with the International Centre of Comparative Criminology (ICCC), for which she is also in charge of the ICCC-UL Group. She is involved in other scientific committees and editing committees of different journals in her field. Her research work concerns criminal investigations and investigation techniques, crime prevention with a situational approach, the analysis of decision-making process and operating methods particularly in the case of sexual, violent, and serial crimes.

Claude Goulet (PhD) is a Professor in the Department of Physical Education at Université Laval in Quebec City. For more than 25 years, his research projects have focused on the promotion of safety in the practice of physical activity and sport. From 1998 to 2006, he was responsible for research on safety in sports at the Ministère de l’Éducation du Québec (MEQ). The MEQ is responsible for the application of a unique law, known as the law of safety in sports. Under this law, one of the mandates of the MEQ is to “ensure that the safety and integrity of persons are guaranteed during the practice of physical activity and sports”. Dr. Goulet’s research activities cover a wide range of practice environments, from free practice to organized practi

Martine Hebert (PhD in Psychology) is a professor for the sexology department at the Université du Québec in Montréal (UQAM). She holds the Level 1 Research Chair of Canada on interpersonal traumas and resilience, and she is co-holder of the Marie-Vincent Chair on sexual aggressions against children. She also leads the Équipe Violence Sexuelle et Santé (EVISSA). Her projects focus on identifying factors related to the adaptation of youth who disclosed a sexual assault, and to resilience trajectories. Since the beginning of her career, she has participated in the training of more than 80 graduate students. In collaboration with her colleagues, she edited 3 volumes on sexual aggression and on psychosexual development and wrote more

Dr. Emma Kavanagh is a Senior Lecturer in Sports Psychology and Coaching Sciences at Bournemouth University. Emma’s research has focused on understanding abuse in face-to-face and virtual sporting environments, articulating the duty of care and enhancing safeguarding in sporting spaces. She is part of a number of international research networks which have a clear vision to enhance the climate and environment in which high-performance athletes function. In her applied work as a sport psychologist she has prepared athletes and teams for, and attended major sporting events such as Olympic, Paralympic and Commonwealth Games.

Melanie is Director of the Centre for Safeguarding and Child Protection in Sport (CPSS) and a Reader in Child Protection and Safeguarding in Sport at Edge Hill University, in the UK. Her teaching and research focus on : children’s rights in sport, with a particular focus on participation rights (‘voice’) and protection rights; the development and evaluation of policies and prevention initiatives on safeguarding and child protection in sport and interpersonal violence against children and adults in sport; approaches to engage children, young people, and ‘survivors’ of violence and abuse in sport into safe sport research and practice. In a career spanning almost 20 years, Melanie has worked with national and international sport federations,

Dr. Mountjoy (MD, PhD) is a Clinical Professor in the Department of Family Medicine at McMaster University Medical School and a Regional Assistant Dean of the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine, McMaster University. She is also a clinician scientist, a sports medicine physician and a researcher. Dr. Mountjoy works for several International Sports organizations in the field of sports medicine including the International Olympic Committee (Games Group), the International Federations of Golf, FIFA, World Rugby, the Association of Summer Olympic International Federations (ASOIF) and for the World Anti-Doping Agency. She is a retired elite artistic swimmer.

Jeannine Ohlert is a sport psychologist and currently employed as a researcher at the Dept. Health & Social Psychology of the German Sport University Cologne. She is part of the German research team on sexual and interpersonal violence in sport since 2015 and was involved in the first quantitative study on the dimensions of interpersonal violence in German elite sport (Safe Sport project). Since then, she is looking for ways to incorporate research findings and knowledge about interpersonal violence in sport into the education of coaches or club officials and has implemented the topic in the education of young sport psychologists in Germany. Her current research focus is on quantitative studies in the area of interpersonal violence and an

Dr Aurélie Pankowiak is a postdoctoral research fellow within the Institute for Health and Sport. Her research interest and expertise include interpersonal violence in sport, the creation of safe sport environments and diversity/inclusion in sport. Her research focuses on both how sport stakeholders manage these issues, and how they affect sport participants and athletes. Aurélie has developed a research program around the issue of violence against children in Australian sport. She is a co-founder of IRNOVIS (International Research Network on Violence and Integrity in Sport), a collaborative network which aims to develop and advance an international research agenda to study violence and integrity in sport.

Sylvie Parent, PhD, is a Professor in the Department of Physical Education at Université Laval. Her research focuses on violence in sport. More specifically, her current work focuses on four (4) themes: 1) measuring the prevalence of violence toward athletes and its associated risk factors, 2) the impact of violence in sport on the physical and mental health of young participants, 3) violence experienced by young officials in the course of their duties, and 4) various contexts of victimization of athletes (university environment, sexual minorities). In 2020, Dr. Parent was awarded the responsibility of directing the Research Chair on Safety and Integrity in Sport. The mission of the Chair is to prevent violence in sport by mobilizing a pa

Ashley Stirling is an Associate Professor, Teaching Stream and the Vice-Dean of Academic Affairs in the Faculty of Kinesiology and Physical Education at the University of Toronto. Prof Stirling is known internationally for her research in sport psychology, specifically on athlete welfare and interpersonal violence in sport. Applying her research to practice, she has developed and evaluated national coach education initiatives for the Coaches Association of Ontario, the Coaching Association of Canada and the association Canadian Women & Sport.

Isabelle V. Daignault has a PhD in clinical psychology and is professor at the Criminology school at Université de Montréal. Her practice and researches focus essentially on young and teenagers victims of criminal acts. Her research work happens in a clinical setting and aims to improve psychological and socio-judiciary interventions for youth exposed to sexual violence, including children who exhibit problematic sexual behaviours. Since 2019, as a former athlete, she is interested in the problem of violence in sport sectors. With Nathalie Fontaine, she directs the Youth Development and Adjustment Study Center (YDASC). She is a research member of the Équipe Violence Sexuelle et Santé (ÉVISSA), of the Compared Criminology International

Marie-Pier Vaillancourt-Morel is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières and director of the Sail Lab-Laboratory for Research on Sexual and Intimate Life. She completed her doctorate in psychology at Université Laval and her postdoctorate at Université de Montréal. She is also a psychologist in good standing with the Ordre des Psychologues du Québec. Her research focuses on sexuality, couples and trauma, focusing mainly on the effects of interpersonal childhood trauma, sexual abuse and pornography use on the sexual well-being of couples. More specifically, she is interested in sexual violence experienced in the context of sports.

Dr Tine Vertommen is a leading researcher and advisor on the prevalence and prevention of interpersonal violence in sport, with more than fifteen years of experience. She holds a master’s degree in ethics, a master’s degree in criminology and a PhD in health sciences, combining a strong academic foundation with extensive applied expertise. She currently works as a senior researcher at Thomas More University of Applied Sciences and a visiting professor at Ghent University, where she co-founded the Safe Sport Lab Thomas More-Ghent University. In 2024, she founded Arch Safeguarding, a consultancy that supports sport organisations in developing, implementing and evaluating safeguarding policies and practices. Her work is internationally recogni

Dr. Woessner is an early career researcher in Melbourne Australia who completed her PhD in 2019. Over the last 3 years, she has developed a program of research around the issue of violence against children in Australian sport. She is a co-founder of IRNOVIS (International Research Network On Violence and Integrity in Sport), a collaborative network which aims to develop and advance an international research agenda to study violence and integrity in sport. She is also a member of the Advisory Committee for the “Start To Talk” campaign by Play by the Rules- Start to Talk is an Australian national awareness campaign on sexual abuse against children in sport. Dr. Woessner’s current line of research focuses on exploring both the magnitude of vi

Andrea Woodburn is a Full Professor in the Department of Physical Education at Université Laval. Her research focuses on the learning of sport coaches and socio-economic accessibility in organized sport. A former alpine ski coach and resource person trainer with the National Coaching Certification Program (NCCP), she has collaborated with several national federations in the development of coach education programs. She is a regular contributor to the work of the International Council for Coaching Excellence (ICCE).

Kevin is an internationally recognized expert in the Sociology of Sport, and on matters related to sports violence in particular. He has authored or edited 15 books, and over 100 journal articles, book chapters and book reviews. His research and teaching interests bridge Criminology and Sociology of Sport, as seen in his studies of on- and off-field violence, litigation and security. He has also published widely on matters relating to gender, body and health, and the use of animals in sport. Kevin has served on the editorial boards of numerous academic journals as well as two elected terms as Vice-President of the International Sociology of Sport Association. For over 20 years he has edited one of the most recognized book series in his fiel