Dr Emma Kavanagh is a Senior Lecturer in Sports Psychology and Coaching Sciences, an HCPC Registered Sport and Exercise Psychologist (BASES SEPAR) and Chartered Sport and Exercise Scientist, working with athletes at National and International level. Emma's research interests are within the academic disciplines of psychology and sociology, her work centres on critically examining abuse in virtual and face-to-face sporting environments, understanding the duty of care and enhancing safeguarding in sporting spaces.

Emma is the current Chair of the British Association of Sport and Exercises (BASES) Integrity Advisory Group and has been a member of the BASES athlete protection task group responsible for the development of safeguarding workshops which aim to educate existing and trainee sport and exercise scientists on issues of athlete safeguarding in the United Kingdom. She is also part of a number of research networks which have a clear vision to enhance the climate and environment in which high-performance athletes function. As examples Emma has been a member of the NSPCC Sport England Child Protection in Sport Unit Research Evidence and Advisory Group, and the UK Coaching Safeguarding Talented and Elite Children Expert Group. She is also an invited expert member of the Research Chair in Security and Integrity in Sport at Laval University, Quebec, Canada and a member of IRNOVIS an International network of researchers examining violence in sport hosted by the University of Antwerp.