Richard is a Senior Lecturer in Children's Movement Behaviours and Health (formerly a Lecturer in Physical Activity and Physical Education Psychology) in the Department of Sport and Physical Activity, where he teaches on the Physical Education and School Sport undergraduate degree programme. He joined Edge Hill as a Lecturer in 2019 having worked as a post-doc researcher within the Department. He has also previously worked at Swansea University as a Lecturer and Teaching Tutor. Richard was awarded his PhD from Swansea University in 2018/19, having completed a BSc (Hons) in Sport and Exercise Science at the University of Portsmouth (2013). He is the Research Lead for the Health, Wellbeing, and Welfare Research Strand within the Department of Sport and Physical Activity. He is also a committee member of the International Society of Behavioural Nutrition and Physical Activity (ISBNPA) Children and Families Special Interest Group and an active professional member of the International Motor Development Research Consortium, the British Association of Sport and Exercise Sciences (BASES), the UK & Ireland Motor Competence Network, and the Active Healthy Kids Global Alliance.

Richard’s research focuses on the broad areas of physical/motor competence, physical fitness, physical literacy and 24-hour movement behaviours (physical activity, sedentary behaviour, and sleep). In particular, he is interested in how these areas affect the healthy growth and development in children, as well as, across the life course. His expertise and experiences align with these areas. He coordinated and was lead researcher on the Swan-Linx programme for 2 years in collaboration with the City and County of Swansea and Healthy Schools, obtaining data on over 4000 school children in Swansea in the areas of health, fitness, physical activity, nutrition, sleep, wellbeing and lifestyle. He also completed work on the reliability and validation of the Dragon Challenge, which aims to assess the physical competence domain of physical literacy in school children, and worked with Sport Wales and Disability Sport Wales to develop an inclusive version of the tool. Additionally, Richard was the lead researcher for the Active Healthy Kids Wales 2016 and 2018 Report Card on Physical Activity for Children and Youth, and now an expert group member on the 2022 version. More recently, he coordinated the Waterloo CoDA project in the North West area of England investigating a novel 24-hour compositional data analysis approach to understand the influence of sleep, sedentary time, and physical activity on children’s and adolescents’ behavioural, psychological and cognitive health, and physical/motor competence. His current research includes validating a novel physical literacy questionnaire for its use in primary school aged children in England, investigating the current levels and potential inequalities in physical literacy in children, and understanding the associations physical literacy has with physical activity levels and health outcomes.

Richard teaches on the BA (Hons) Physical Education and School Sport programme. He contributes to children’s growth and movement development, human movement science, psychological and sociological issues in physical education and school sport, physical activity and health, and research skills modules.