DrEmiliano Mazzoli

Dr Emiliano Mazzoli is an Executive Dean Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Deakin University. His research focuses on creating equitable physical activity opportunities for underrepresented children and adolescents, particularly those with disability. He is interested in developing and testing physically active strategies to improve children’s physical literacy, physical activity, independent mobility, and cognitive functions.

Emiliano leads TransformUs All Abilities, a project that involved co-designing, adapting, and testing a school-based physical activity program to support students with disability in increasing their physical activity and reducing sedentary behaviour during school hours. He also co-led the adaptation of TransformUs for Saudi Arabian schools. His PhD research, funded by the Department of Education and Training of Victoria, contributed to understanding how classroom-based active and cognitively engaging breaks impact physical activity, sedentary behaviour, cognitive functions and on-task behaviour in children with and without disability.

Besides the school setting, Emiliano contributed to developing and testing the validity and reliability of the Physical Literacy in Children Questionnaire (PL-C Quest), the first comprehensive pictorial assessment of children’s self-perceived physical literacy, aligned with the Australian Physical Literacy Framework. More recently, he has investigated how this instrument could be used to inform sport coaching practice in regional and rural Australia.

Emiliano is the Co-Chair of the newly established Special Interest Group on Physical Activity in Priority Population, within the Asia-Pacific Society for Physical Activity (ASPA).

Research Group

• Institute for Physical Activity and Nutrition