About Us

Dr Sarah Zipp is a leading researcher on sport, gender and menstrual health. She has taught at universities around the world and hosted he UK’s first academic workshop on sport and menstruation in 2020. Dr Zipp designed these menstrual health lessons based on published research, with guidance from a diverse group of expert advisors and input from adolescent girls.

She was named the Early Career Scholar of the Year in 2020 by the Journal of Sport for Development and has published her work in academic journals, books and media articles. Her research and advocacy work includes the UK Menstruation Research Network, UK Period Poverty Taskforce, Gender Equality Toolkit for Generation Z (GETZ) Erasmus project and more.

Lilamani de Soysa has worked to support girls and women in international sport for decades. A former professional table tennis player, Lila travelled the world competing on behalf of her home country, Sri Lanka. She studied at the University of Lausanne. More recently, she taught on gender and sport at the Tokyo Olympic legacy programme at Tsukuba University in Japan. She is an Executive Member to the International Working Group on Women in Sport (IWG). She works on gender and sport, sport for development and education in sport. Lila lives in Lausanne, Switzerland, the Olympic capital of the world.

Our Advisors

We have also worked with several partners, collaborators and advisors who support our work. We want to acknowledge the input, resources and advice from Dr Lombe Mwamabwa (Zambia), Dr Sasha Sutherland (Barbados), Dr Georgie Bruinvels (UK), Molly Hyde (UK), Dr Liita Iyaloo Cairney (Namibia/UK) and the UK Menstruation Research Network.