Melanie is Assistant Director of the Centre for Safeguarding and Child Protection in Sport (CPSS), ISR Fellow (Research and External Funding), and Reader in Child Protection in Sport at Edge Hill University, UK. Her research and teaching focuses on safeguarding, child protection and abuse prevention in sport; athlete welfare; gender-based violence in sport; and children's rights in sport. 

She is UK lead and a member of the steering committee for the Erasmus+ funded project ‘Child Abuse in Sport: European Statistics' (CASES) (2019-2021) and the International Olympic Committee Advanced Research Grant Programme-funded project 'Athlete- and coach-led education for  teaching about abuse and neglect' (2020-2021). She was previously UK lead on the European Commission-funded project 'Gender-Based Violence in Sport' (2016-2017) and has carried out consultancy for several national sports organisations and safeguarding and child protection charities.

Melanie is a member of the Pool of European Experts on Sexual Violence in Sport (EU), the NSPCC Sport England Child Protection in Sport Unit Research Evidence and Advisory Group (UK), and the Research Chair in Security and Integrity in Sport (Laval University, Quebec, Canada). She i also an ambassador for Freedom from Abuse. 

Melanie works with national and international sports and coaching organisations, third-sector organisations and sport and safeguarding groups and has delivered training and continuing professional development workshops to policymakers, coaches, athletes and charitable organisations from the UK, China, Japan and Ghana. Her work has been supported by the European Commission Education, Audio-visual and Culture Executive Agency, the Sport England/ NSPCC Child Protection in Sport Unit, Sport England, and NWG Network. 

As well as publishing scientific articles, Melanie is editor of three books: ‘The Routledge Handbook of Athlete Welfare’ (Routledge, 2021), ‘Safeguarding, Child Protection and Abuse in Sport: International Perspectives in Research, Policy and Practice’ (Routledge, 2015), and ‘Bullying and the Abuse of Power’ (Inter-Disciplinary Press, 2010). She  regularly appears in the national and international media as an expert speaker on safeguarding, child protection, and violence prevention issues in sport and is a subject expert reviewer for various journals and for Routledge sport book proposals and the International Olympic Committee and Economic and Social Research Council grant applications.

Melanie's internals roles within Edge Hill University include acting as a supervisor and examiner of MRes and PhD candidates, chairing Posgraduate Research student vivas, serving as the Social Sciences department International Co-ordinator for study abroad schemes, and sitting on the institutional Social Sciences Research Ethics Committee.   

Safeguarding, child protection and abuse in sport

Welfare and well-being of adult and child athletes

Lived experiences of violence, abuse and maltreatment in sport 

Interpersonal violence in sport

Gender-based violence in sport

Sexual harassment in sport

Children's rights in sport

Ethics and integrity in sport

Youth sport policy implementation and evaluation

Narrative methodology and pedagogy

Ethnographic research

Research ethics

Sensitive research

Melanie introduced some of the first teaching modules on athlete welfare, child protection and children's rights in sport nationwide in her current and prevous institutions. She currently teaches modules on a range of sociology and sociology of sport themes and is a supervisor to MRes and PhD students working in the area of safeguarding and child protection in sport and physical activity.