Dr Rochelle Stewart-Withers is an academic with the Institute of Development Studies, School of People, Environment and Planning, Massey University, NZ.

The focus of her teaching and research looks to understand and analyse/critique processes that are transforming people’s lives around the world, with a particular focus on the world’s poorer countries. Specifically she explores the ways sport is used to achieve social and economic goals in developing countries and/or marginalised communities, and most of her research has been undertaken in the Pacific Region.

Rochelle is also Chair of her University Ethics Committee, hence her other areas of interested are ethics, methodology and complexities of fieldwork and she looks to publish in these areas too. Rochelle is also a board member of the NZ Mental Health Foundation, and finally she is mother to 5 teenage children.