Loughborough Institute of Advanced Studies Podcast

IAS Guest Speakers Dr Sophia Lin, Associate Professor Sally Nathan & Sam Lloyd delivers a seminar on their research -
Sport-based positive youth development programs are increasingly used worldwide to support the psychosocial wellbeing, engagement, and life skills of young people experiencing social and economic disadvantage. Yet, despite their widespread adoption, significant questions remain about how such programs should be designed, how their impacts should be evaluated, and whose perspectives shape definitions of “success”. This seminar draws on a long‑term research partnership between academics at the University of New South Wales with Creating Chances, a large Australian social enterprise delivering sport‑based youth development programs. The seminar will bring together three complementary areas of work to explore how evidence can be generated in ways that are both methodologically rigorous and practically meaningful.
First, we reflect on the realities of evaluating large‑scale programs in real‑world settings, including the methodological tensions that arise when randomisation, individual tracking, and experimental control are not feasible. Rather than aiming for idealised study designs, we explore how evaluation can still generate credible, decision‑relevant evidence under these conditions.
Secondly, the seminar presents findings from a large evaluation examining how program design features such as duration, attendance, and sustained engagement are associated with psychosocial outcomes.
Finally, we describe a co‑production process in which practitioners and young people were actively involved in shaping what outcomes are measured and how. This work demonstrates how participatory approaches can improve the relevance, acceptability, and usability of evaluation tools, while also addressing power dynamics between researchers, organisations, and participants. Taken together, this seminar argues for a reframing of impact in youth development research, moving beyond narrow outcome metrics toward context‑responsive that supports development and meaningful social change. While grounded in sport‑based youth development, the insights have relevance across education, health, and community‑based intervention research.
For more information about the IAS, please visit - https://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/ias

Fulbright Fellowship Scholar Dr Lucy E. Dunne delivers a seminar on their research -
Electronic textiles and wearable technology offer the ability to dynamically control the space immediately surrounding our bodies: controlling temperature, supporting our physical capabilities, providing therapeutic interventions, collecting and communicating information. This vision has engaged the research and industrial communities intensively for at least the last 25 years, yet some of the most exciting potential has yet to be unlocked. This talk will discuss the nuance of this intricate interrelationship between electronics and human bodies, discussing examples including clothing developed to treat neonatal jaundice and to support physical therapy and rehabilitation, with a focus on the challenge of preserving thermal comfort in cold environments through on-body heating. 
For more information about the IAS, please visit - https://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/ias 

IAS Residential Fellow Professor Justin A. Haegele delivers a seminar on their research -
Visually impaired youth are often enrolled in integrated educational environments, specifically within physical education (PE), but seldom experience feelings of inclusion (acceptance, belonging, and value) within those spaces. Rather, they often identify experiencing issues with marginalization, discrimination, and ostracization within PE, and that pedagogical practices that are implemented within this educational space are perceived as inappropriate and belittling because they do not take their needs or opinions into consideration. To address these issues, this work-in-progress seminar will share research that aims to explore how visually impaired students experience specific pedagogical strategies and curricular content, and re-imagine PE for blind and visually impaired youth while co-producing resources with visually impaired youth to be disseminated to PE teachers support feelings of acceptance, belonging, and value. This study centralizes disabled people and their voices as critical parts of the research process, and is guided by the conceptual lens of inclusion as intersubjective experiences.
For more information about the IAS, please visit - https://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/ias

IAS Visiting Fellow Dr Robina Begum delivers a seminar on their research -
Crosslinked polymeric particles loaded with metal nanoparticles are called hybrid microgels. These fascinating materials have properties of both organic and inorganic components and have gained significant attention due to their potential applications in catalysis and environmental science. Our group at University of the Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan in collaboration with international researchers from different countries including UK has developed hybrid microgel systems with different compositions/architectures. We have incorporated nanoparticles of different metals into the microgels made of different monomers and co-monomers. We have studied potential of the hybrid systems towards degradation of toxic chemicals and catalytic organic transformations. This talk is an introduction of our work published in recent years.
For more information about the IAS, please visit - https://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/ias 

IAS Residential Fellow Professor Giuseppe Saccomandi delivers a seminar on their research -
We present a critical overview of constitutive modeling in nonlinear elasticity, with particular emphasis on isotropic incompressible materials. Starting from the historical foundations and the seminal contributions of Rivlin, the talk revisits the motivations behind invariant-based strain-energy functions and their experimental interpretation. The widespread proliferation of constitutive models is discussed in relation to several recurring pitfalls, including over-parameterization, identifiability issues, and an excessive reliance on analyticity. Special attention is devoted to Ogden-type models, whose remarkable descriptive capabilities are contrasted with their well-known limitations in predictive reliability. By reconsidering classical experimental data and multiscale arguments, alternative modeling perspectives are outlined, with the aim of clarifying the principles that should guide constitutive choices in nonlinear elasticity and their applications to soft materials, biomechanics, and wave propagation issues.
For more information about the IAS, please visit - https://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/ias 

Integrated Research on Disaster Risk (IRDR) is an international scientific programme co-sponsored by the International Science Council (ISC) and the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR). IRDR International Centres of Excellence (ICoEs) are established to make direct contributions to IRDR’s mission in advancing research and capacity building, supporting the implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction and the Sustainable Development Goals. The International Centre of Excellence in Informatics and Disaster Resilience (ICEIDR) is one of the most recently approved IRDR ICoEs. It brings together six world-leading institutions — Loughborough University, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Delft University of Technology, Kyoto University, RWTH Aachen University, and Zhengzhou University — to address pressing global challenges in disaster risk reduction through advanced smart informatics approaches. This event will mark the official launch of ICEIDR. It will be followed by presentations from the six partner institutions and discussion to shape the future direction of ICEIDR, including its role in advancing informatics for disaster risk reduction, building global capacity, and influencing international research agendas and policy. 

IAS Visiting Fellow Professor Asha Banu Soletti delivers a seminar on their research, fully titled "Co-constructing Well-being in Ecologically Marginalized Tribal Landscapes in rural Maharashtra" -
Situated within the reserved forest, nearby the Thansa Lake reservoir in Maharashtra, tribal communities continue to live amidst layered ecological and social vulnerabilities despite their proximity to vital natural resources. Chronic water crisis, climate stress, precarious livelihoods, seasonal migration profoundly shape community health and well-being. Women bear disproportionate burdens of care often walking miles for water while navigating fragile household economies and disrupted support systems. The Pragati initiative emerged from the realization that health cannot be understood outside the ecological and social realities within which communities live. Moving beyond fragmented biomedical responses, the project re-envisioned community health through participatory, context-sensitive, and equity-oriented approaches grounded in lived experiences and collective resilience. This presentation is a reflection on Pragati’s evolving praxis and argues for community well-being frameworks that foreground ecological realities, structural inequities, and community agency in shaping sustainable and socially just health futures. In this co-construction process, the journeys and stories of resilience within communities become central to understanding health and well-being, while digital storytelling emerges as a meaningful approach to documenting lived realities, amplifying community voices, and fostering collective reflection and engagement.
For more information about the IAS, please visit - https://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/ias

IAS Visiting Fellow Dr Maria Luiza Tanure Alves delivers a seminar on their research, fully titled "Critical Perspectives on Disability and Inclusion in Physical Education" -
Physical Education (PE), as part of the fundamental right to education, should be understood as the first setting in which children and young people systematically learn about their possibilities within physical activity and sport. However, research developed over recent years has highlighted a reality permeated by ableist assumptions, resulting in the exclusion and silencing of disabled students in PE and, subsequently, their distancing from sport. The theoretical recognition of ableism has shed light on the power relations that shape practices and, consequently, determine rights to exist within PE and later within sport. As an evolving field supported by critical theories such as Black feminism, current research has increasingly questioned the meaning of inclusion and the ways in which this fundamental right is also constituted through relations of domination and power among social groups. Transforming the reality of disabled people in PE requires a transformation in how we understand PE and how we define inclusion within it. The starting point for this transformation is the recognition of the intersectional identity of disabled people in PE and sport, grounded in the understanding that a reality can only be transformed once its existence is recognized.
For more information about the IAS, please visit - https://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/ias

IAS Guest Speaker Professor Desmond Kharmawphlang delivers a seminar on their research -
The slopes of the Khasi and Jaintia hills in the state of Meghalaya in India are home to swaths of rainforests. The forests are dominated by ficus elastica, such as banyan, Indian rubber and ficus Khasiana named after the Khasi tribe of Meghalaya. While these trees with aerial roots grow profusely in the wild, they are also grown and nurtured by the people for multiple reasons. A tree is planted to mark the naming ceremony of a child. The trees are also believed to protect villages from the plague, from storms and flash floods, a frequent occurrence in the area which experiences the heaviest rainfall on earth. These trees also serve as bridges. The talk will centre around the trees as part of the community of flora and fauna and the stories they engender and embody.
For more information about the IAS, please visit - https://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/ias

IAS Visiting Fellow Professor Saini Yang delivers a seminar on their research, fully titled "Transportation Infrastructure Risk Assessment on the context of Climate Change"
Climate change poses a critical threat to the resilience and functionality of transportation infrastructure. Traditional risk assessments, often focused on physical losses and single assets, are inadequate for addressing the complex, interconnected, and non-stationary nature of climate impacts on transportation system. This necessitates a shift towards a holistic risk assessment framework. Such a framework moves beyond evaluating individual components like bridges or roads in isolation, instead considering the entire transportation system as a dynamic network. It employs high-resolution climate projections to understand future hazard exposure, including sea-level rise, extreme precipitation, and heatwaves, and conducts a multi-faceted vulnerability analysis that assesses not only physical susceptibility but also functional dependencies, operational capacity, and socioeconomic consequences of service disruption. Finally, it quantifies systemic risk by modeling cascading failures across the network, where damage to one node can propagate and cripple regional mobility and supply chains. This integrated framework enables policymakers and engineers to identify critical vulnerabilities, prioritize cost-effective adaptation investments, and enhance the long-term resilience of transportation infrastructure, ensuring its continued role in economic stability and societal well-being.
For more information about the IAS, please visit - https://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/ias