David Russell was an accomplished academic and professor with the School of Physical Education, University of Otago, in New Zealand. He began his career at UBC where he received his BPE (1970) and MPE (1971) from the UBC School of Kinesiology (head of the graduating BPE class). He continued his academic journey at the University of Michigan where he completed an MA in psychology and his PhD in motor learning and control. He then went on to serve as a Research Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois before moving to the Human Movement Studies Dept at the University of Queensland in Australia where he was a Senior Lecturer from 1974-81 and Head of the Dept from 1978-81.
In 1981 he became Dean of the School of Physical Education at the University of Otago, NZ until July 1991. Following his period as Dean of the School, David established the Life in New Zealand Activity and Health Research (LINZ) Unit and served as the Director until his retirement in 2001.
David’s research interests have included: coordinating a research review on drugs in sport for the Royal Society of NZ culminating in the publication ‘Drugs in Sport: Their Use and Abuse’; and exploring the cost of inactivity of the New Zealand population leading to the report ‘The Cost of Doing Nothing.’
