Professor Jennifer Cumming CPsychol CSci AFBPsS FHEA

Tuesday 2:00-4:00 PM or by appointment

Ph.D. (Kinesiology, with an emphasis on Sport Psychology). University of Western Ontario, London Canada, 2002.

M.A. (Sport Studies). University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada, 1998.

B.Ed. (Physical Education; Specialization in Fitness Education). McGill University, Montreal, Canada, 1996.

Dr Jennifer Cumming is a Professor of Sport and Exercise Psychology from the University of Birmingham (UK) and a Chartered Psychologist and Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society. 

Jennifer’s current research focuses on community-based approaches to developing practical and culturally-tailored interventions for athletes and, more recently, individuals who are traditionally considered ‘harder to reach’.  She is interested in how individuals learn to effectively regulate their thoughts, feelings, and behaviours with mental skills training, and determine the impact of self-regulation (or dysregulation) on performance, health, and well-being.  Whereas sport psychology customarily focuses on mental skills as a regulatory capacity that athletes use in competitive and non-competitive situations, she more broadly uses this knowledge to support social inclusion, mental health, and health-related quality of life in communities that are more challenging to engage, such as homeless adolescents or care leavers. 

Since 2013, Jennifer has worked with St Basils, a West Midlands-based Housing Service, to co-design and deliver the first sport psychology informed intervention for young people experiencing homelessness or at risk.  My Strengths For Life™ (MST4Life™) is a strengths-based programme designed to address the emotional and psychological issues of homeless young people whilst simultaneously recognising their great resilience and strengths.

Jennifer’s earlier research focused on the mental technique of imagery through the development of theoretical models for use in research and applied settings, such as the revised applied model of deliberate imagery use, and by determining ways to effectively develop and measure imagery use and ability in sport, exercise, and dance.  This work has led to improved measurement of imagery processes and ways to increase the credibility of imagery interventions by establishing appropriate screening measures and manipulation checks.  She was the Guest Editor of a Special Issue on Imagery Ability for Imagination, Cognition and Personality and is a Founding Member of the Research in Imagery and Observation (RIO) Group. 

She was nominated for the University of Birmingham’s Founders’ Award for Excellence in Policy Advancement in 2015 and Enterprising Birmingham’s Most Innovative Collaboration award in 2017.  She has received funding from the ESRC, St Basils, Public Health England, and other sources.  Her work has been recognised as good practice by Public Health England and is being used to inform interventions for preventing and reducing homelessness in the UK.  She has published nearly 100 peer-reviewed papers or book contributions and has given key note addresses and workshops from esteemed societies including BACP, BASES, FEPSAC and DSEP. 

Dr Jennifer Cumming is the module lead for Sport and Mental Health.  She also supervises undergraduate students undertaking their final year project.

Jennifer is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. She completed a Post Graduate Certificate in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education in 2010 and received high commendations for her research project that was also published in Vol. 9 of the Journal of Hospitality, Leisure, Sport & Tourism Education. In 2012, Jennifer was awarded the Excellence in Teaching Award for both the School of Sport, Exercise and Rehabilitation Sciences and the College of Life Environmental Sciences. 

In collaboration with Dr Victoria Burns, Jennifer has received educational enhancement funds from the Higher Education Academy, University Sport Birmingham, and the University’s Centre of Learning and Academic Development (CLAD) for teaching-related research into the transfer of teamwork skills learnt in outdoor pursuits settings (i.e., the University’s Raymond Priestley Centre) to academia.

This research formed part of the Birmingham Evaluating Skill Transfer (BEST) project (2010-2014) that was nominated in 2013 for a University of Birmingham, Hospitality and Accommodation Services (HAS) OSCAR for the Support of the Year Award. It also led to the development of the Groupwork Skills Questionnaire (GSQ; Cumming, Woodcock, Cooley, Holland, & Burns, 2015) measure task and interpersonal groupwork skills as well as a semi-structured diary room method for collecting qualitative data (Cooley, Holland, Cumming, Novakovic, & Burns, 2014).   

Nominated for the University of Birmingham’s Good Supervisor Award in 2010, Jennifer has supervised 17 PGR students to completion since 2002 (14 PhD, 2 MREs, and 1 MPhil).

Recent graduates include Dr Mary who is a Research Fellows and Operations Manager of the My Strengths Training for Life™ project with St Basils.  Dr Sam Cooley won the Doctoral Researcher Development Award (First Prize) in 2013 to attend two conferences in New Zealand and is now a Trainee Clinical Psychologist. Dr Maria-Christina Kosteli is now a Senior Lecturer in Physical Activity and Physical Education Psychology at Edge Hill University.  Dr Mark Holland is a Senior Lecturer at Newman University.  As a PhD student, he received the Michael K. O’Rourke PhD Publication Award for his 2010 publication featured in a Special Issue on Youth Sports for the Journal of Clinical Sport Psychology entitled, “Mental qualities and employed mental techniques of young elite team sport athletes”. Another former student, Dr Sarah Williams, now a lecturer in the School of Sport, Exercise and Rehabilitation Sciences, was named as the winner of the Division of Sport and Exercise Psychology's Outstanding PhD Thesis for 2011 (British Psychological Society) for her work on "Athlete Imagery Ability and Effective Imagery Use".

Jennifer welcomes applications from competitive and/or self-funding UK, European, and overseas students for projects related to her research interests (PhD or Masters by Research).  Students who are considering applying to the University of Birmingham to work with Jennifer should contact her by email in advance or check for advertised projects on www.findaphd.com. 

• Imagery and observational learning in sport, exercise, and dance
• Mental skills training
• Sport performance issues (competitive anxiety, motivation, perfectionism)

Jennifer’s research mainly focuses on the effective use of imagery by athletes, exercisers and dancers. She has published this work in several leading journals in the field, has served as a section editor for the European Journal of Sport Sciences and now sits on the editorial board of The Sport Psychologist and the Journal of Imagery Research in Sport and Physical Activity. Her research has been funded by charities and organisations, including AASP, Aston Villa Football Club, the British Academy, St Basils, and the Winning Scotland Foundation. 

In 2012, Jennifer delivered a keynote address and a skills workshop on this research at the 40th British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies (BABCP) Annual Conference at the University of Leeds. She recently served as Chair of the Sport and Exercise Psychology of the 2013 NASPSPA conference program. 

Within the School, Jennifer collaborates mainly with Dr Victoria Burns and Dr Sarah Williams, as well as other colleagues from the Sport Psychology Research Group (Prof Joan Duda, Dr Cecilie Thogersen-Ntoumani, and Dr Nikos Ntoumanis). For example, she recently concluded a project in collaboration with Prof Joan Duda to develop, implement, and evaluate a mental skills training program for youth team sport athletes. 

At the national level, Jennifer is involved with the Research in Imagery and Observation (RIO) group. She also has on-going collaborations with her mentor and former supervisors, Prof Craig Hall (University of Western Ontario, Canada) and Prof Diane Ste-Marie (University of Ottawa, Canada). 

Recent press releases/media

Fika and the University of Birmingham bring app-based mental skills training to students Press Release (17 February 2020)

Launch of Mental Skills Training Tooolkit for young people Homeless Link (14 February 2020)

How sports psychology is used to help young homeless people in Birmingham Big Issue (30 January 2020)

To tackle the homelessness crisis we need evidence-based solutions, not Dickensian punishments Politics Home (29 January 2020)

Olympic State of Mind Olympic Channel (20 January 2020)

Mental skills training is not just for athletes  Homeless Link (19 October 2019)

Mental skills training improves well-being and employment outcomes for homeless youth Press Release (10 October 2019)

Can you imagine your way to success? BBC (16 July 2019)

How algorithms and cats predict the winners of the World Cup BBC (14 July 2018)

Public lecture/videos

Making a Positive Change in Youth Homelessness (5 March 2020)

Realising Potential – How Sports Psychology Can Challenge Homelessness (24 February 2020)