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Dr. Alison Pope-Rhodius is the Program Director for our Applied Sport and Performance Psychology (ASPP) Department. Alison is well known in her field and previously served as the Chair of the Sport Psychology Program at JFK University and the Program Director of the ASPP Program at Holy Names University in Oakland, CA. She completed her Master’s in Sport Science and PhD in Sport Psychology at Liverpool John Moores University, UK.

Alison migrated to the U.S. in the year 2000 and continued to work in the field of mental performance. Her career highlights include traveling the world working with elite archers and coaches, including Colombia, Italy, India, Turkey and Thailand, and working with the U.S. team and U.K. number one archer at the Olympics in Athens in 2004. She has also worked with Hollywood actors and an elite cricketer in India. She is renowned in her discipline and has been an active member of the Association for Applied Sport Psychology (AASP) for many years, was made a Fellow of AASP in 2018 and successfully re-certified as a Certified Mental Performance Consultant (CMPC, administered by AASP) in December 2024.

Alison has her own small private practice in the San Francisco Bay Area. She has worked with athletes and coaches from all sports and performing artists; she has specialized in understanding elite individual performance needs. Her applied work now focuses on working with firefighters. 

In 2018, Alison co-edited a book all about how to be successful before, during and after applied sport psychology training experiences, which was published by Routledge, titled Excelling in Sport Psychology: Planning, Preparing and Executing Applied Work. She was also the host of the first podcast in sport psychology called ‘Wee Chats with Brilliant People’: @WeeChats.

In her spare time, Alison likes to walk her dog (Luna), pet her cats, listen to her husband play cello, camp, hike, take photos, play tennis, watch tennis, talk about tennis, grow succulents, eat curry, watch films and admire giraffes and lions.

Education

Liverpool John Moores University, PhD, Sport Psychology

Liverpool John Moores University, MSc, Sport Science