New sports subject lead to put the ball back in students’ court for better career prospects

Sport, Exercise and Life Science students can look forward to even better job prospects as the new head of these subjects will be concentrating on making them more employable.

Dr Peter Jones, an experienced academic leader and exercise physiologist, joins us as Subject Lead for Sport, Exercise and Life Sciences.

He is also University of Northampton’s first Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, an appointment that will see him help shape and change university policies and approach to learning and teaching.

Subject areas he will have responsibility for include Human Bioscience, Sport Development and Physical Education and Sport and Exercise Science.

Work ahead for Peter and his team at Northampton includes embedding digital skills to help drive student employability, developing the postgraduate course offer and forming new links with businesses across all subject areas.

Peter previously worked at Staffordshire University, latterly as the Interim Dean of the Business School and formerly as the Head of the School of Psychology, Sport and Exercise.

During his tenure as Head of Psychology, Sport and Exercise he helped the school become one of the most successful at Staffordshire. Key milestones included helping make the academic sport team one of the top 15 in the UK and increasing the revenue generated by research conducted there by 20%.

Commenting on this, Peter said: “I’m really excited about joining Northampton at this time. Working for my county university is very important to me and Waterside will be a game changer for both the University and the county.

“We already have a great team delivering great subjects in Sport, Exercise and Life Sciences making my job of setting students for a greater future a lot easier.”