Yiannis Koutedakis

He is currently a Professor in applied physiology at Thessaly University (Greece) and a visiting Professor at the University of Wolverhampton, UK. Formerly an elite sportsman and national coach (for both Greece & UK), he has also been involved in dance as elite dancer and professional teacher. He was one of the founders of the British Olympic Medical Centre, where he worked with various Olympic Squads and professional dancers. Furthermore, he has taught exercise physiology at the London Contemporary Dance School and English National Ballet School, whilst he has acted as external examiner in several European Universities. He is also the author of the World’s first university-based MSc courses in “Dance Science” (Wolverhampton University, UK, 2002) and in “Military Fitness and Wellbeing” (Thessaly University, Greece, 2013). His initial research interests were focused on human physical fitness and – inter alia – he has led research into athletes’ and dancers’ fitness and welfare commissioned by the British Olympic Association & Dance UK, respectively. However, during the last decade or so his research has been shifted into examining elements of health and quality of life in different populations, including passive smokers, obese individuals, rheumatoid arthritis and dancers. The impact of this work is partly evidenced via its usage by reputable agencies, such as the US Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (2008), the European Commission, Health and Consumer Protection Directorate-General (2009), the WHO Collaborating Centre for Housing and Health (2010), the Scottish NHS (2011), the British Heart Foundation (2012), the South African Thoracic Society (2013), the US Department of Health – Surgeon’s General Report (2014), and the UK Society for the Study of Addiction (2015). Parts of his work have also been used by Wikipedia to define terms such as ‘euphoria’ and ‘overtraining’.