The Chair of Sport Psychology headed by Prof. Dr. Jürgen Beckmann has received approval to appoint a Visiting Professor within the framework of the Visiting Professor Program, funded by the Bavarian State Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts. Dr. Svenja Wolf will be joining the team as a Visiting Professor at the Department of Sport and Health Sciences from July 15th to October 31st, 2020 to enhance joint research projects.
Dr. Wolf received her doctorate in the field of sports psychology at the German Sport University Cologne and spent four years in Canada during and after her doctorate at the Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo and the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. She transferred to the University of Amsterdam in 2015 to work in the field of social psychology. In September 2018 she took up her current position as Assistant Professor of Sport & Performance Psychology in the field of Industrial and Organisational Psychology.
Her research is primarily focused on the study of emotions in groups. “Collective emotions exist within a group, especially in sport”, explains Dr. Wolf. “I'm also investigating the role of lead players, for example, in the development of these emotions.” In doing so, she mainly concentrates on sports and, in particular, on competitive sports and team sports.
“I am very pleased that we will be having Dr. Wolf as a member of our Chair until the end of October 2020”, says Prof. Beckmann. “Our contact was established through various sports psychology events, most recently she held a lecture at our international leadership forum at the TUM Science and Study Center in Raitenhaslach in autumn 2019.” During her stay at the Department of Sport and Health Sciences she will work closely with Dr. Vanessa Wergin, whose key research area focuses on collective team collaps in sports teams.
“There is an assumption that these emotions can spread within a team and therefore play a role in the event of a collective team collapse”, explains Dr. Wolf with regard to the joint research proposal. “For this reason, Dr. Wergin and I intend to investigate this hypothesis more closely on the field. GPS tracking will also be used to analyse how player coordination changes when they are in a positive or negative state."
Following her guest professorship at the Department of Sport and Health Sciences, Dr. Wolf is pursuing a tenure-track professorship as part of the Sport Psychology Program at Florida State University. Due to the current situation, however, taking up her new position is proving more difficult than expected: “Unfortunately, I am currently unable to apply for a United States work visa, which is why I will probably have to hold my first lectures and seminars digitally in autumn.” Nevertheless, she hopes that the situation will ease somewhat by the end of the year so that her research and teaching can begin in Tallehassee/Florida from January 2021.
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Contact:
Prof. Dr. Jürgen Beckmann
Chair of Sport Psychology
Georg-Brauchle-Ring 60/62
80992 München
phone: 089 289 24541
e-mail: Juergen.Beckmann(at)tum.de
Text: Romy Schwaiger
Photo: Private