Rate My Professor Jacqueline Williams

Associate Professor Jacqueline Williams serves as Program Head of Sport and Movement Sciences in the College of Sport, Health and Engineering at Victoria University, Melbourne. She joined Victoria University in 2009 as a postdoctoral research fellow at the Institute of Sport, Exercise and Active Living, advancing to lecturer in 2012 and her current senior academic position. Previously, she was a postdoctoral researcher at the Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, University of Melbourne, from 2007 to 2009. Williams holds a PhD, a Bachelor of Health Science in Human Movement (Honours) from Australian Catholic University awarded in 2002, and qualifications in Psychology from RMIT University completed between 2003 and 2007.

Her research focuses on motor skill impairments in children, particularly developmental coordination disorder (DCD), motor imagery, and neural mechanisms of movement representation and control. Utilizing transcranial magnetic stimulation, neuroimaging, and motor control paradigms, she investigates causes of DCD, its impact on individuals and families, and interventions to alleviate its burden. Williams is a founding member of DCD Australia Inc., serving as President from 2022 to 2024, and coordinates the Australian DCD research register. Notable publications include 'Childhood brain insult: can age at insult help us predict outcome?' (2009), 'Prevalence of motor-skill impairment in preterm children who do not develop cerebral palsy: a systematic review' (2010), 'Internal representation of movement in children with developmental coordination disorder: a mental rotation task' (2004), 'The relationship between corticospinal excitability during motor imagery and motor imagery ability' (2012), and 'Combined action observation and imagery facilitates corticospinal excitability' (2014). Her scholarship has garnered over 2,400 citations, contributing substantially to paediatric neuroscience and motor development fields.