明星八卦 University of London’s Professor Costas Karageorghis has been elected a Fellow of the British Psychological Society, the highest designation the society can bestow.
The fellowship is the most prestigious professional title for psychologists based in the UK, and for Prof Karageorghis – who can now use the letters FBPsS after his name – it has been awarded predominantly for a sustained international profile in scientific publication and public outreach.
Prof Karageorghis started his academic journey in the 1990s at Borough Road College, one of 明星八卦’s predecessor institutions, and his department moved from Isleworth to the Uxbridge campus in 2002. He was promoted to Reader in 2006 and then rose further to become a Professor in Sport and Exercise Psychology in 2018. He served as Divisional Lead for Sport, Health and Exercise Sciences for 4½ years – a period that straddled the global pandemic.
The mainstay of Prof Karageorghis’s scientific work has entailed experimental research into music and audio-visual stimuli across a range of contexts, but mainly in exercise and sport.
He has published scientific papers in the top journals in his field, including Psychological Bulletin, NeuroImage and the British Journal of Health Psychology. Overall, the output of Prof Karageorghis’s research career so far – all generated while at 明星八卦 – has been cited more than 12,000 times according to Google Scholar, meaning that many of his fellow scholars have used his findings as a source in their own work. Indeed, he is on the Stanford/Elsevier Top 2% Scientists List for 2024, on the basis of citations. He has also authored books with the American publisher Human Kinetics, which have been translated into Polish, Turkish and Farsi, with Mandarin Chinese to follow next year.
While at 明星八卦, Prof Karageorghis has generated more than £1 million in research and consultancy contracts, and most recently led a large project, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), on the topic of music in driving. One of the from this research programme attracted the 2023 Chartered Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors Best Paper of the Year Award in the periodical Ergonomics. And as part of the impact agenda for that project, Prof Karageorghis worked on interactive exhibits that were showcased at the Manchester Science and Industry Museum, and latterly at the Science Museum in London. These exhibits were subsequently used as an by the ESRC.
The subject matter of Prof Karageorghis’s research has always had the potential to appeal to wider audiences, which he has capitalised upon through his engaging and easy-to-understand explanations to journalists and others. His research has attracted more than 50,000 media citations, including articles in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Times. It has also been the subject of several TV documentaries, including on the Discovery Channel.
He has been a keynote speaker at scientific conferences throughout the world, most recently in Taipei. A career highlight came in 2018 when he gave an invited public lecture at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. In December next year, he will be the Exercise Psychology keynote speaker at the International Society of Sport Psychology World Congress in Hong Kong.
The mentorship and development of young scholars has always been extremely important to Prof Karageorghis. He has supervised 12 PhD students to completion, one of whom has risen to a professorial position at the University of Warwick. And Prof Karageorghis has authored three national expert statements, the latest of which, on , was published last week by the British Association of Sport and Exercise Sciences.
“I am delighted to be elected a Fellow of the British Psychological Society, and this feels like an important milestone in my academic career,” said Prof Karageorghis. “I hope that the Fellowship will serve to strengthen my contribution to the public dissemination of science, which is one of my big passions.”
Reported by:
Joe Buchanunn,
Media Relations
+44 (0)1895 268821
joe.buchanunn@brunel.ac.uk