RIVERSIDE, Calif. — With the start of the London Olympics less than two weeks away, scholars from the University of California, Riverside are available to talk about a variety of topics, such as the history of the Olympic Games, the use of social media, and the participation of women athletes from Saudi Arabia.
History of the Games
Thomas Scanlon, professor of Classics(951) 827-1462[email protected]http://complitforlang.ucr.edu/people/faculty/bio.html?page=scanlon.html
Scanlon has written many books and articles on the original Olympics held in Olympia, Greece, and sport in the ancient world. Some traditions of the ancient games set patterns that are still followed in the modern Olympics, the first of which was in 1896 in Athens. The Olympic torch, the notion of the amateur athlete, and the concept of gold, silver and bronze medals are all inventions of the modern games, he says.
Security: Video Surveillance
Amit Roy-Chowdhury, associate professor of electrical engineering(951) 282-7515[email protected]http://www.ee.ucr.edu/~amitrc/
Roy-Chowdhury is an expert on video surveillance and analysis, particularly as it relates to national and homeland security. He can talk about surveillance security at the Olympics. Earlier this year he co-authored a book, “Camera Networks: The Acquisition and Analysis of Videos over Wide Areas.”
Soccer, Gender and Sports
Jennifer Doyle, associate professor of English[email protected]http://www.english.ucr.edu/people/faculty/doyle/index.html
Doyle writes a blog about the cultural aspects of soccer, “From a Left Wing,” and is available to discuss anything related to soccer, sports in general, and sports and gender. She is writing a book about the intersection of art and sports.
Saudi Women Athletes
Laila Lalami, associate professor of creative writing[email protected]http://creativewriting.ucr.edu/people/lalami/index.html
Born and raised in Morocco, Lalami is an award-winning novelist and short-story writer. Her essays and opinion pieces have appeared in Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, The Nation, the Guardian, and the New York Times. She is available to discuss the significance of women athletes from Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in the Middle East competing in the Olympics for the first time.
Social Media and the Olympics
Derek Burrill, associate professor of media and cultural studies[email protected]http://mediasources.ucr.edu/expertprofile.html?id=87
Burrill is available to discuss the use of social media in the London Games, from the IOC’s creation of official Twitter, Facebook and YouTube accounts to the strict rules imposed on Games participants with regard to tweeting, blogging and posting to social networks.
USA Volleyball Assistant Coach
Ron Larsen, UCR head volleyball coach[email protected]http://gohighlanders.com/staff.aspx?staff=73
Larsen is an assistant coach for the USA Men’s Olympic Volleyball team. He was the top assistant coach with the USA Men’s Volleyball Team when they won the gold medal at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
Keeping Fit in Our Genes
Theodore Garland Jr., professor of biology(951) [email protected]://biology.ucr.edu/people/faculty/Garland.html
Trained in comparative physiology and evolutionary biology, as well as quantitative genetics with emphasis on exercise physiology, Garland can talk about how wanting to keep fit is in our genes, capable of being passed on genetically from generation to generation, and how future medicine could promote our activity by targeting these genes — thus complicating how athletes will be judged for their performance at future Olympic Games.
UC Riverside has a campus television studio with a fiber-optic link to the Hollywood Hub and an ISDN line available at KUCR-FM, the campus radio station.
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