Holly Thorpe (PhD) is Associate Professor at Te Huataki Waiora / Faculty of Health, Sport and Human Performance at the University of Waikato (New Zealand). She is a sociologist of sport and physical culture, with her research interests including youth, gender, women’s health, action sports, and Sport for Development. She has published 6 books and over 60 articles and chapters on these topics, and has been a recipient of both Fulbright and Leverhulme Fellowships, and more recently a three-year Royal Society grant focused on youth in sites of war, conflict and disaster. Holly has worked with Skateistan since 2012 on various research projects, and has published various academic articles from this work. In 2016, she established the Action Sports for Development and Peace (ASDP) website, and is leading research in the emerging field of ASDP studies.