American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance - AAHPERD

Alliance Scholar

The Alliance Scholar program promotes scholarship among AAHPERD's members and seeks to encourage and facilitate research and creative activities which will enrich the depth and scope of health, leisure, sport, dance and related activities.

Selected annually, the Alliance Scholar presents the Alliance Scholar Lecture at the AAHPERD National Convention & Exposition. The Scholar disseminates findings to the profession and other interested audiences through presentations at institutional venues in addition to an Internet Web-cast presentation. The Alliance Scholar Lecture is published in one of AAHPERD's journals.

2012-13 Alliance Scholar ― Karl M. Newell

Karl Newell has arguably had more impact over the past 40 years on the shape of contemporary Kinesiology than any other individual. His ground-breaking Quest articles that promoted "Kinesiology" as the name of the profession, expanded the scope of the field from sport to physical activity, and reconceptualized relationships between theory, practice, and performance had (and continue to have) profound effects on departments across the country. As department head at Illinois and Penn State, he put these theories into practice. The Penn State Graduate Kinesiology Program, under his leadership, has been ranked #1 in the country by the American Academy of Kinesiology. He also spread his ideas about Kinesiology to the east by giving a series of talks in South Korea, Japan, and China.

Newell is also a disciplinary scholar. His productivity and the quality of his work are astounding: 300 articles in top journals around the world, over $25 million in grants and contracts as principle investigator or investigator, 8 books, and more than 80 book chapters. His research ranges from cutting edge theoretical work (he is one of the experts on chaos theory and dynamical systems as they relate to human movement) to practical matters that can be put to work in rehabilitation, educational, and therapeutic contexts. He has conducted research on movement and Parkinson's disease, cerebral palsy, retardation, and other abnormal conditions. For his efforts, Newell has been honored with the Distinguished Scholar Award by NASPSA, the Schmitt Career Research Award at Penn State, and other prestigious prizes.

Karl Newell will present the Alliance Scholar Lecture at the 2013 convention in Charlotte, NC, and is available to make official presentations through the Scholar program, which underwrites the costs to your group.