Dr Matthew A. Timmis

Mat is Director of Student Outcomes within the Faculty of Science and Engineering and an Associate Professor of Learning and Teaching in Sport & Exercise Science.

He is a BASES accredited sport and exercise scientist, Chartered Scientist and sits on the BASES Education and Teaching Special Interest Group and HE Endorsement Scheme Advisory Group.

[email protected]

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View Matthew's ResearchGate profile

Background

Mat gained his Bachelor's degree in Sports Science and Football Coaching from Liverpool John Moores University. He completed his PhD at the University of Bradford and moved to ARU in 2010.

Mat has held various education leadership roles, including Deputy Head of Department - Sport & Exercise Science (Education), Faculty Science & Engineering Director of Learning, Teaching and Assessment and presently, is the Faculty Director of Student Outcomes.    

Mat is an external examiner, has completed the Advance HE external Examining Institutional Development Programme and is a member of the Anglia Professional Recognition Scheme (APRS) awarding panel and reviewer for the APRS Advance HE fellowship route.

Mat is also the institutional TEF Educational Gain project lead and a member of the Cambridge Centre for Sport and Exercise Sciences (CCSES).

Research interests

Mat’s areas of research fall broadly into two areas:

Education research:

• Understanding how to support student transition into higher education

Vision and Performance:

• Vision impairment and human movement
• Visual search and sporting performance

Areas of research supervision

Current PhD supervision:

• Harrison Leivers - Evidence-based Classification for Footballers with Vision Impairment: Setting Class Boundaries.
• William Cubbin - Effect of driver knowledge of cycling practice on emotional and behavioural response to encounters with cyclists on the road.
• Georgia Dunn – The influence of vision loss on running gait.
• Chris Maskell - Visual search and decision making among soccer players.
• David Stephens – Educating the educators: Understanding sport coach educators' practice and influence on coaches' learning.
• Clare Strongman - The effect of exercise interventions on non-linear gait variability in people with peripheral neuropathy.

Completed PhD supervision:

• Baranian, A., 2021. The effect of Retinitis Pigmentosa on activities of daily living.
• Robertson, P., 2019. Visual search strategies in Judo coaches.
• Van Paridon, K., 2018. The influence of stress on visual attention and performance execution in aiming tasks.
• Caddy, O., 2016. The implications of the UCI saddle position rules on 4 km cycling time trial performance.

Teaching

BSc (Hons) Sport and Exercise Science

BSc (Hons) Strength and Conditioning with Rehabilitation

BSc (Hons) Sports Coaching and Physical Education

Qualifications

• 2019: University Teaching Fellow (UTF), Anglia Ruskin University
• 2017: Chartered Scientist (CSci)
• 2017: BASES accredited Sport and Exercise Scientist (Teaching Pedagogy)
• 2016: Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA)
• 2016: MA Education (distinction), Anglia Ruskin University
• 2013: Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA)
• 2013: PGCert Learning and Teaching in Higher Education, Anglia Ruskin University
• 2007-10: PhD in Vision and mobility/ motor control. Thesis title: Visuomotor control of step descent: The importance of visual information from the lower visual field in regulating landing control. University of Bradford
• 2004-7: BSc (Hons) Sports Science and Football Coaching, Liverpool John Moores University.

Memberships, editorial boards

• 2021-present BASES trained Supervised Experience Supervisor and Reviewer 
• 2021-present: BASES HE Endorsement Scheme Advisory Group.
• 2020–present: BASES Education and Teaching Special Interest Group Steering Committee.

Guest Editor:

• Frontiers in Psychology. 2023 New Lines of Inquiry for Investigating Visual Search Behavior in Human Movement. Timmis, van Paridon, Piras, Miller-Dicks 

Research grants, consultancy, knowledge exchange

Road User Attitudes. £22,664.09. Sept 22. Warwickshire County Council, Cambridgeshire County Council, Essex County Council

How do we travel to school? Is it safe and can it be safer? £4,536. July 2020. The Royal Society (Partnership Grant).

Evaluation of Bikeability Training. £10,000. June 2020. Essex County Council.

Development of a virtual reality (VR) game to improve hazard perception in young cyclists. £13,820. August 2018. CIHT Foundation.

Practically Perfect in Every Way? £3,239.30. June 2017. Learning and Teaching Projects Awards. Anglia Ruskin University.

Role of visual attention in hazard perception among young cyclists. £9,080. October 2016. CIHT Foundation.

Examination of how peripheral vision loss affects everyday activities and increases the risk and the fear of falling in people with glaucoma. £14,899.90. October 2014. Fight for Sight small grant awards scheme.

The impact of diabetic retinopathy and neuropathy on patients' functional disability. £49,504. January 2013. NIHR Research Capability Funding.

Selected recent publications

Stephens D, Stodter A, Timmis MA. 2024. Who Coaches the Coaches? Exploring the Biographies of Novice Athletics Coach Education Tutors. International Sport Coaching Journal. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1123/iscj.2022-0112.  

Cubbin W, Paridon K, Keyes H, Timmis MA. 2024. Close passes caught on camera – How knowledge and behavioural norms relate to perceptions of liability when cars overtake cyclists. Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour; 100, 308-322. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trf.2023.12.002 

Strongman C, Cavallerio F, Timmis MA, Morrison A. 2023. Evaluating consistency of physical activity and exercise prescription in the UK for people with diabetes – a Delphi study. Front. Clin. Diabetes Healthc. 4:1278597. https://doi.org/10.3389/fcdhc.2023.1278597

Strongman C, Cavallerio F, Timmis MA, Morrison A. 2023. A Scoping Review of the Validity and Reliability of Smartphone Accelerometers When Collecting Kinematic Gait Data. Sensors, 23, 8615. https://doi.org/10.3390/s23208615

Zult T, Timmis MA, Pardhan S. 2023. The effects of age and central field loss on maintaining balance control when stepping up to a new level under time-pressure. PeerJ 11:e14743 https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.14743 

Timmis MA, Pexton S, Cavallerio F. 2022 Student transition into higher education: Time for a rethink within the subject of sport and exercise science? Front. Educ. 7:1049672. https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2022.1049672

Van Paridon K, Lally J, Robertson PJ, Basevitch I, Timmis, MA. 2022. Adaptations in visual search behaviour as a function of expertise in rugby union players completing attacking scenarios. Frontiers in Psychology, 13, 837558. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.837558

Piras, A., Timmis, MA., Trofè, A. and Raffi, M., 2021. Visual Strategies Underpinning the Spatiotemporal Demands During Visuomotor Tasks in Predicting Ball Direction. Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 1(aop), pp.1-10.  

Van Paridon K, Timmis MA, Sadeghi Esfahlani, S. 2021. Development and Evaluation of a Virtual Environment to Assess Cycling Hazard Perception Skills. Sensors, 21, 5499. https://doi.org/10.3390/s21165499 

Maguire R, Timmis MA, Wilkins L, Mann D, Beukes E, Haimisha P, Johnstone J, Adie J, Arnold D, Allen P. 2021. Is the pink ball still under review? Cricket umpires’ perceptions of the pink ball for day/night matches. Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport. 24(11), pp.1166-1172 

Timmis MA, Ferrandino M, Morrison A, Allen P, Latham K. 2021. How is jump performance affected in male athletes when completed with a visual impairment? Optometry and Vision Science, 98(7), pp.846-853. 

Latham K, Mann DL, Dolan R,  Myint J, Timmis MA, Ryu D, Frisson R, Allen PM. 2021. Do visual fields need to be considered in eligibility criteria within visually impaired shooting? Journal of Sport Sciences. 39: 150-158, DOI: 10.1080/02640414.2021.1911425 

Maguire R, Timmis MA, Wilkins L, Mann D, Beukes E, Homer A, Johnstone J, Adie J, Arnold D, Allen P. 2020. Cricketers are not tickled pink by the new coloured ball. Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport, 24(2), pp.183-188. 

Piras A, Timmis MA, Trofè A, Raffi M. 2020. Understanding the underlying mechanisms of Quiet Eye: the role of microsaccades, small saccades and pupil-size before final movement initiation in a soccer penalty kick. European Journal of Sport Science 1-27. https://doi.org/10.1080/17461391.2020.1788648 

van Paridon KN, Leivers H, Robertson P, Timmis MA. 2019. Visual search behaviour in young cyclists: a naturalistic experiment Transportation Research Part F: Psychology and Behaviour. 6, 217–229 

Zult T, Allsop J, Timmis MA, Pardhan S. 2019. The effects of temporal pressure on obstacle negotiation and gaze behaviour in young adults with simulated vision loss. Scientific Reports. 9(1), 1-13. 

Non Peer-reviewed articles:

Timmis MA and Cavallerio F. 2021. Student Retention in Higher Education (HE). Time for a rethink? The Sport and Exercise Scientist. Issue 70. Winter 2021. 

BASES Education & Teaching Special Interest Group Steering Committee. Understanding how students enrolled on sport degrees perceive their learning to be impacted whilst teaching restrictions are present due to COVID-19. Jan 2021.

BASES Education & Teaching Special Interest Group Steering Committee. Students, what advice would you give one another to help with your studies in 2021? Jan 2021.

Media experience

Tennis: The science of fast serves. Naked Scientists, 4 June 2019.

Various newspaper and radio interviews relating to following publication: Timmis, M. A., Bijl, H., Turner, K., Basevitch, I., Taylor, M., van Paridon, K. N., 2017.The impact of mobile phone use on where we look and how we walk when negotiating floor based obstacles. PLoS ONE, 12(6), e0179802. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0179802

Texting on a mobile phone makes you walk silllily, study finds. The Guardian, 30 June 2017.