Award Winner

Dr. Raw is a highly productive and exemplary scholar in the field of sport for development. Her research has focused upon the design, management, and implementation of initiatives and sustainability policies within sport for development organisations located in a range of countries with the intention of contributing to further knowledge on how to leverage sport to address critical social issues and foster positive social change.

Her experiences researching, evaluating sport for development initiatives and focusing on how to improve the experiences of program beneficiaries has established Dr. Raw as one of the leading experts on the role of innovative hybrid organisational forms in the sport for development field. She brings this knowledge into her teaching role as a Lecturer in Sport Management at Swinburne University of Technology.

Katherine’s accomplishments include seven published articles, six of which are in the top-ranked journals within the discipline of sport management and sport for development, including Sport Management Review, Journal of Sport Management, and the Journal of Sport for Development. She has also authored nine book chapters in edited scholarly books. She is accustomed to working cross-institutionally in teams with respected researchers, both locally and internationally including researchers from RMIT, Deakin University, the University of Technology of Sydney, La Trobe University and Louisiana State University. In addition to her collaborations with academic institutions, she has engaged with numerous industry partners where she has successfully been a part of multiple externally commissioned industry research grants, resulting in 26 industry reports and over $500,000 in research income.

Katherine’s scholarly work has been recognized nationally, receiving two awards from the Sport Management Association of Australia and New Zealand (SMAANZ) in recognition of her research, including the “Student Research Award” in 2019 and the “Best Research Paper Award” in 2022.

Dr. Raw is honoured to be awarded the JSFD Early Career Scholar Award. She is greatly appreciative and thankful for the many collaborators, colleagues, industry and community partners and research participants who have been involved in her research and whom she has had the privilege and pleasure to work with.

The evaluation process was overseen by the JSFD Early Career Scholar Award Committee. At least two committee members reviewed each nomination and all committee members evaluated nominations considered on the short list of finalists. Any member of the award committee who declared a conflict of interest with a particular candidate was excluded from providing an evaluation for that candidate, and other committee members or additional evaluations were utilized to undertake the review process.