Rate My Professor Sarah Zipp

Dr. Sarah Zipp serves as Associate Professor and Program Coordinator for Sport Management in the School of Human Resource Management, Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies at York University’s Markham Campus. She earned her PhD in International Development from the International Institute of Social Studies at Erasmus University in the Netherlands, with a dissertation on sport as human capability development for at-risk youth in Barbados and St. Lucia. She also holds an MSc in Sport Leadership and Administration from Virginia Commonwealth University and a BA in Anthropology and Archaeology, magna cum laude, from Washington and Lee University. Dr. Zipp has extensive international academic experience, having taught at institutions across four continents, including as Associate Professor of Sport Management and Program Director at Mount St. Mary’s University from 2022, Lecturer in Sport Studies and Sport Management at the University of Stirling from 2017 to 2022, Lecturer and Researcher in International Sport Management at Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences from 2014 to 2017, and Instructor of Sport Management at SUNY College at Cortland from 2006 to 2014. Earlier roles include Director of Development for Athletics at Christopher Newport University and various positions in athletic administration and international programs.

Dr. Zipp’s research focuses on sport for social good, gender equality in sport, sport for development, menstrual health in sport, globalization, sport policy, and social issues in sport. She has published extensively, including co-editing the Routledge Handbook of Global Sport (2020) and Global Markets and Global Impact of Sport (2018), as well as peer-reviewed articles such as “Menstruation Matters: Understanding adolescent girls’ experience of menstrual health through sport in Zambia” (Journal of Sport for Development, 2024, with L. Mwambwa), “Development, gender and sport: Theorizing a feminist practice of the capabilities approach in sport for development” (Journal of Sport Management, 2019, with T. Smith and S. Darnell), and “Levelling the playing field: Human capability approach and lived realities for sport, development and gender in the Caribbean” (Journal of Sport for Development, 2018, with J. Nauright). She received the Early Career Researcher of the Year award from the Journal of Sport for Development in 2020. Dr. Zipp is an advisor to the Global Observatory for Gender Equality in Sport in Switzerland, has consulted for Nike, and founded the Power to Play Period initiative on menstrual health education in sport. As a student-athlete, she competed in basketball, athletics, and team handball.