Confirmed invited speakers:

Dr. Catherine Draper, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa

Dr Catherine Draper is an Associate Professor in the SAMRC/Wits Developmental Pathways for Health Research Unit at the University of the Witwatersrand. She has a background in Psychology and the social sciences, and obtained her PhD in Public Health in 2005 from the University of Cape Town. She was the President of the International Society of Physical Activity and Health from 2018-2020, and is a Fellow of the International Society of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity.

Dr Draper’s research interests include the development and evaluation of community-based health promotion interventions, and is particularly interested in early childhood health and development. She led the initiative to develop South African 24-hour movement guidelines for the early years, and was a member of the World Health Organization Guideline Development Group for guidelines on physical activity, sedentary behaviour and sleep in children under 5 years of age, and an international observer for the Under 5’s Expert Working Group for the UK physical activity guidelines. She is part of the leadership group of the International Study of Movement Behaviours in the Early Years (SUNRISE). Dr Draper is currently leading studies on early learning, social emotional development and mental health in young children in vulnerable settings in South Africa, and also works on the Healthy Life Trajectories Initiative (HeLTI) with young women in Soweto, Johannesburg. HeLTI aims to optimise young women’s physical and mental health, intervening from preconception through to early childhood, in order to establish healthier trajectories for themselves and future offspring.

Title of invited presentation: “The South African 24-hour movement guidelines for the early years: development, dissemination, and local perspectives.”

Prof Peter Katzmarzyk, Pennington Biomedical Research Center, USA

Prof. Katzmarzyk is Professor and Associate Executive Director for Population and Public Health Sciences at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center where he holds the Marie Edana Corcoran Endowed Chair in Pediatric Obesity and Diabetes. Prof. Katzmarzyk is an internationally recognized leader in the field of physical activity and obesity, with a special emphasis on pediatrics and ethnic health disparities. He has over two decades of experience in conducting large clinical and population-based studies in children and adults. Prof. Katzmarzyk has a special interest in global health and has a record of building research capacity in physical activity and obesity research in developing countries.

He has published his research in more than 625 scholarly journals and books, and is Associate Editor-in-Chief for Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, Associate Editor for American Journal of Human Biology, and editorial board member for Metabolic Syndrome and Related Disorders and Pediatric Exercise Science. In addition to his research, Prof. Katzmarzyk plays a leading role in national health advocacy initiatives. He chaired the Research Advisory Committee for the U.S. Report Card on Physical Activity for Children and Youth for the Physical Activity Alliance between 2013-2022. He also served on the 2018 U.S. Physical Activity Guidelines Advisory Committee for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the World Health Organization Guideline Development Group for the WHO 2020 Guidelines on Physical Activity and Sedentary Behaviour in Youth, Adults and Older Adults. In 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022, Prof. Katzmarzyk was recognized as a highly cited researcher by the Web of Science.

Title of invited presentation: “Human movement behaviours and obesity: Latest insights.”

Prof Lauren Sherar, Loughborough University, United Kingdom

Prof. Lauren Sherar is a Professor of Physical Activity and Public Health in the School of Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences at Loughborough University in the United Kingdom (UK). She has expertise in accelerometer assessment of movement behaviours, data harmonisation, interventions and measuring growth and development of children.

Prof. Sherar has over 140 publication and 20 years’ experience of conducting research and developing and evaluating interventions in schools, communities, and clinical settings with a particular focus on the physical activity and health of children and adolescents. She is passionate about getting research into practice and policy and is on the working groups for the UK’s Children’s Physical Activity Report Card and the Physical Activity Physical Activity Guidelines for Children and Young People. She holds an Honorary Academic Appointment with the Government’s Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID; formerly Public Health England), and is a collaborator in several international research consortia and longitudinal studies such as the Saskatchewan Growth and Development Study and the International Children’s Accelerometry Database (for which she is a part of the executive committee).

Title of invited presentation: “How can accelerometry pooling projects advance our understanding of 24-hour behaviours and guideline compliance in youth?”

Dr Pedro Saint-Maurice, The Champalimaud Foundation , Portugal

Dr Pedro Saint-Maurice has recently joined the Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown (Champalimaud Foundation, Portugal) as an investigator, after several years as a Research Fellow at the National Cancer Institute’s (NCI) Division of Cancer Epidemiology & Genetics. He received a Ph.D. in Kinesiology from Iowa State University, Ames, in 2013, and his dissertation work examined the potential of accelerometry for calibrating physical activity questionnaires. He has led several studies to understand the measurement properties of both accelerometers and physical activity questionnaires, and was also involved in the NCI-funded project, The Family Life, Activity, Sun, Health, and Eating (FLASHE) Study.

Dr. Saint-Maurice's work has focused on evaluating the impact of physical activity on health during midlife (age 40-60) by examining activity duration patterns (i.e., 10+ minutes at-a-time vs. any duration), intensity (i.e., light vs. moderate to vigorous activity), and timing (i.e., age at physical activity initiation), the relationship between daily step count and stepping intensity (steps/minute) with mortality in both healthy adults and adults with chronic conditions, and using accelerometry data to estimate the public health impact of small increases in physical activity across the U.S. adult population. More recently, he has investigated how profiles of sleep and ambulatory movement throughout the day might be associated with cancer risk and mortality, and he will be focusing on the benefits of physical activity and sleep among adults diagnosed with cancer in his new position at the Champalimaud Foundation.

Title of invited presentation: “Sleep and cancer risk: Evidence from observational studies.”

Dr Asmaa El Hamdouchi, National Centre for Nuclear Energy, Morocco

Dr Asmaa El Hamdouchi holds a PhD in Nutrition from Ibn Tofail University (Morocco) and currently works at Morroco’s National Centre for Nuclear Energy. Her research interests span from child malnutrition to the measurement and variability of body composition and energy expenditure across the human life course, and the measurement and surveillance of children’s physical activity and sedentary behaviours across the globe, being involved in several international collaborations and initiatives such as the Global Observatory for Physical Activity (GoPA!) and the International Surveillance Study of 24h Movement Behaviours in the Early Years (SUNRISE-study).

She has extensive experience in the use of doubly-labelled water for measuring the energy expenditure and body composition in children and adults (including for developing and validating new assessment tools), and using accelerometers to measure the physical activity and sedentary behaviour habits of children and adolescents. Dr El Hamdouchi is a currently a member of the steering committee for the SUNRISE-study and was the lead investigator for its pilot study in Morocco, which will be the focus of her presentation.

Title of invited presentation: “The SUNRISE Study – Morocco pilot study results, the challenges and how they were overcome.”

Prof Adam Baxter-Jones, University of Saskatchewan, Canada

Prof. Adam Baxter-Jones has published over 200 articles related to childhood growth and development. He is an expert in the design and data analysis of longitudinal growth studies. He graduated from the New University of Ulster, Northern Ireland in 1985 with B.Sc. (Hons.) in Biology. He initially trained as a respiratory physiologist in the Lung Function Unit at the Royal Brompton Hospital, London UK (1985 to 1987) before taking up a position as an exercise physiologist on a longitudinal study of the growth and development of elite young athletes (The TOYA Study – 1987-1992), Institute of Child Health, University London. Whilst there he was trained as an auxologist in the lab of Dr JM Tanners, the world’s preeminent expert in children’s growth and development. In 1992 he relocated to the Department of Child Health, University of Aberdeen, UK and in 1995 was awarded a PhD on the physical effects of systematic training during puberty and adolescence. As a Senior Research Fellow in Child Health, at the University of Aberdeen, he continued to work in childhood growth and development, specifically in pediatric respiratory disease. Prof. Baxter-Jones relocated to Canada in 2000 and is currently the Associate Provost Health and Professor of Kinesiology at the University of Saskatchewan. He is the director of a number of ongoing longitudinal studies of childhood growth and development: including the Saskatchewan Growth and Development Study (SGDS)(1964-2011) and the Pediatric Bone Mineral Accrual Study (BMAS) (1991-2018). These two world renowned studies of childhood growth and development have produced over 100 peer reviewed articles and numerous PhD and MSc dissertations. He is also involved in the development of newly emerging longitudinal studies in a variety of populations including young athletes, children with juvenile idiopathic arthritis and pregnancy studies investigating intrauterine antecedents of adult disease. 

Dr Clarice Lucena Martins, Federal University of Paraíba, Brazil

Dr Clarice Martins is an Associate Professor at Federal University of Paraíba, Brazil, and researcher as University of Porto, Portugal. She has a background in Physical Education, and obtained her PhD in Physical Activity and Health in 2009 from the University of Porto. She is member of the actual direct board of the Brazilian Society of Physical Activity and Health activity and Health. Dr Martins' research interests are focused in the contribution of movement behaviours during the early years for child´s health and development, with a special focus on low-income settings. She participated in the process of devising physical activity guidelines for the Brazilian population (chapter for children aged under 6), is part of the International Society of Behaviour Nutrition and Physical Activity “Early Care and Education” special interest group, and is part of the group of the International Study of Movement Behaviours in the Early Years (SUNRISE) in Brazil. She has been leading experimental studies in preschool settings, in order to understand the non-linear interactions between motor, physical, socio-emotional and cognitive development in low-income Brazilian children, using advanced statistical methods such as isotemporal substitution to advance the knowledge in that area.

Title of invited presentation: “Exploring an integral perspective for the interaction between motor, cognitive and socio-emotional domains of development in low-income Brazilian children”

Prof Tim Lightfoot, Texas A & M University, USA

Prof. J. Timothy Lightfoot has recently retired from Texas A&M University, where he was Debbie and Mike Hilliard Endowed Professor of Kinesiology and the Executive Director of the Sydney and JL Huffines Institute for Sports Medicine and Human Performance. Dr. Lightfoot received his Bachelors and Masters degrees from University of Louisiana Monroe and his doctorate from the University of Tennessee. He completed a research consultantship with the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) at Kennedy Space Center in the Biomedical Laboratory and then a 3-year NIH postdoctoral research fellowship in the Division of Physiology at Johns Hopkins University. Subsequently, Prof. Lightfoot was an Assistant and Associate Professor at Florida Atlantic University for 6, and a Professor at the University of North Carolina Charlotte for 14 years (9 of which as Chair of the department). He is also a Fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), an ACSM Certified Exercise Physiologist, an ACSM Registered Clinical Exercise Physiologist, a Past-President of the Southeast Regional Chapter of the ACSM, and a past member of the Board of Trustees for the ACSM.

Prof. Lightfoot has published over 85 scientific, peer-reviewed articles on the genetics of daily physical activity and exercise endurance, as well as the physiological response to high-G exposure and haemorrhage. He has held ≈ $3 million in external funding from the NIH and Department of Defense to conduct research on the genetics of physical activity, and his research has been featured in numerous general media outlets including the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, Time.com, CNN, MSNBC, and the Australian National Radio. His lab also has a unique interest in the physiological responses of athletes in a variety of non-traditional venues such as auto racing and in musicians.

Title of invited presentation: “Activity levels: Can we blame our parents?”

Prof José Maia, University of Porto, Portugal

Dr José Maia is a Full Professor in Motor Development and a member of CIFI2D at the Faculty of Sport, University of Porto. His extensive work and research focus is on human growth, biological maturation, motor development and performance, and health-related behaviours within different socio-cultural settings, having undertaken research in countries from low- to high-income such as Portugal, Mozambique, Brazil, Thailand and Peru.

Dr José Maia has published more than 300 papers related to physical growth, biological maturation, physical performance and health-related behaviours. He was involved in several research projects in different countries, namely human biological variability conducted in Mozambique, the ISCOLE (conducted in 12 countries across the globe), the Peruvian health and optimistic study, the Peruvian sibling study on growth and health, the Portuguese family study, and the INEX (in search of excellence in sports). He is now involved in a series of funded research projects (REACT, RUSH, ExPertS and Wake-up) together with a team of international renowned scholars.

Title of invited presentation: “The RUSH project: return to school after COVID-19 - the key roles of family, school and communities on children growth and motor development”

Dr Kathryn Hesketh, MRC Epidemiology Unit, UK

Dr Kathryn Hesketh is a Senior Research Fellow in Behavioural Epidemiology at the MRC Epidemiology Unit, University of Cambridge (UK). Dr Hesketh completed her MPhil and PhD in Epidemiology at the MRC Epidemiology Unit and CEDAR (University of Cambridge), before joining UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health (UCL GOS ICH) as a Research Associate, leading a project to explore clustering of health conditions and health behaviours using data from the Millennium Cohort Study. She was awarded a Wellcome Fellowship in 2015, working as a Senior Research Associate at UCL GOS ICH, and subsequently moving back the MRC Epidemiology Unit in 2021. Dr Hesketh's work, with a strong Maternal and Child Health focus, provides evidence to help promote activity behaviours in families with young children. Specifically, it explores how activity behaviours change during the transition to parenthood, how activity behaviours develop during the preschool period and how parent-child activity levels are linked.

Title of invited presentation: “Promoting physical activity during pregnancy: the good, the bad, and the family”

Dr Andy Daly-Smith, University of Bradford, UK

Dr Andy Daly-Smith is a reader in physical activity and healthy childhood. He leads the Wolfson centre for applied research health childhood theme. His research focuses on the design, development and evaluation of behaviour change interventions for physical activity and health in children. He is heavily involved in the Wolfson Centre for Applied Health Research and Born in Bradford as a Research Director on the Sport England funded Join Us: Move Play programme. Recently, Andy led the co-development of the first UK-based whole-school physical activity framework with 50 regional, national and international stakeholders. The model has been widely adopted across the UK to drive systems change for health and physical activity within schools. 

Title of invited presentation: “Creating effective whole-school approaches to physical activity – Addressing behaviour at all system levels”

*NOTE - current titles of invited presentations are provisional and, thus, subject to change before the conference.