Ben Lucas, Associate Director of Commercial Services
Ben in responsible for a portfolio of services and facilities across the University including Sport Swansea and Swansea Bay Sports Park. Ben leads on creation and development of the overarching strategy for student sport including advocacy, stakeholder engagement and the management of key partnerships and commercial opportunities. Ben has a long history with Swansea University, having started studying here as an undergraduate in 2000. He then worked in the Students’ Union, before retuning in 2011 to take up a role with the University. Ben spends his weekends and holidays exploring the wilder parts of Wales and beyond.
James Mountain, Strategic Sport Manager
James manages the University’s sport and physical activity offering and is responsible for delivering on our sport strategy, leading the management team, driving up participation and performance across all of our sport and physical activity programmes, and leading on developing partnerships with key stakeholders. James has a background in managing sport in Higher Education and within National Governing Bodies and is passionate about improving lives through sport and physical activity. James is a keen sports person and spends much of his spare time taking part in adrenaline and team sports.
Shana Thomas, Engage Programme Manager
Shana manages Get ACTIVE, which aims to increase physical activity levels of University students and staff by engaging them in activities on and off campus. With an MSc in Physical Activity and Public Health, Shana has worked in sport, physical activity and health for over 20 years, having started as a Physical Activity Specialist at Swansea Public Health Team. She then spent 14 years as a Senior Officer at Sport Wales where she managed a number of relationships with local authority sports development teams, led on the development of BME sport in Wales, as well as health-based initiatives with Health Boards, Public Health Wales and mental health organisations. Shana is passionate about physical activity for wellbeing and all things cricket, playing and volunteering at her local club, and loves to spend time walking and climbing in the mountains with her family.
Peiman Bourank, Get ACTIVE Coordinator
Peiman supports the Get ACTIVE programme by organising and overseeing sessions and events run for students and staff to increase physical activity levels across the university. This includes supervising and supporting Student Activators in the daily running of the core programme. Peiman also facilitates the planning and delivery of frequent pop-up sessions and Freshers events. In his spare time, Peiman enjoys playing football and has previously played at a semi-professional level. He is also a Fitness Instructor and is occasionally called upon to work at the university.
Sadie Mellalieu, Student Sport Manager
Sadie manages the ‘Aspire’ strand of our sport strategy and is responsible for the delivery of the University’s recreational and competitive sport offering. This currently includes 56 sports clubs and an increasing number of intramural programmes.
Sadie is a keen hockey player and has recently represented Wales in the Over 35’s Masters Hockey World Cup.
Rhodri Mugford, Sports Development Coordinator
Rhodri is responsible for supporting the development of the University's 56 sports clubs.
With a firm focus on supporting and developing students in their roles as club officers, Rhodri offers support and guidance across all aspects of club sport. In his spare time, Rhodri is involved with the Swansea Schools football set up, and was known to be a very talented goalkeeper in his playing days!
Hayley Jones, Sports Administrator
Hayley is responsible for the logistical delivery of the British Colleges and Universities Sport (BUCS) Programme. A Sports Management graduate, Hayley started her sports industry career coaching with the Sports Development Team at Swansea Council.
In her spare time Hayley enjoys watching football and other sports, and is an avid Swansea City AFC supporter, as well as enjoying travelling, photography and music.
Imelda Phillips, Performance Sport Manager
Imelda manages the University’s high performance sport programmes and provides strategic leadership and management to the performance sport managers. In particular Imelda focuses on the Inspire pillar of our strategy, which aims to deliver industry leading performance and high-performance programmes and activities. Imelda has a background in elite sport, competing herself internationally in athletics, in addition to working with elite athletes during the completion of her MSc in Sport Science at Swansea University. Imelda is passionate about elite sport and supporting athletes with dual career and performance lifestyle support.
Verity Cook, Athlete Support Officer
Verity supports the continued development of an outstanding performance sport environment, focusing, in particular, on the development and implementation of our sports scholarship programmes. Verity also provides performance lifestyle services to athletes and leads the development of the TASS programme. Verity supports high performance and talented athletes, as well as the high performance sports, promoting wellbeing across the sporting environments. A qualified performance lifestyle advisor, Verity has extensive experience at Welsh Triathlon and Swim Wales. In her spare time she enjoys traveling, swimming, running and climbing.
Lloyd Ashley, Athlete Support Officer
Alongside Verity, Lloyd also supports the continued development of an outstanding performance sport environment, focusing, in particular, on the development and implementation of our sports scholarship programmes. Lloyd also provides performance lifestyle services to athletes and leads the development of the TASS programme. Lloyd supports high performance and talented athletes, as well as the high performance sports, promoting wellbeing across the sporting environments. Lloyd is an advocate for mental health in sport, and is an accredited first aid for mental health instructor, lead for mental health and wellbeing for the Welsh Rugby Players Association. Having played rugby for over a decade, Lloyd is aware of the high's and low's of elite sports and looks to support our athletes wellbeing throughout their dual-career journey.
Megan Chagger, Elected Sports Officer
Meg was elected by the student body to oversee the smooth running and continued success of sport and physical activity at Swansea University. She acts as a link between students, the Students’ Union, Sport Swansea and the University, to ensure the voice of students are heard and represented. This year will be Meg's fourth year in Swansea, having completed her Sport and Exercise science degree in the Summer of 2023. During her time as a student, Meg represented the University with the Cheerleading team, the Swansea Sirens, competing at university nationals and coming away as 3 x Level 4 National Champions with her team. Meg is looking forward to her term as sports officer and excited to be involved in the 2024 Welsh Varsity, being held at home in Swansea this year!
Thomas Weller, Opportunities and Sport Coordinator
Tom supports the Students' Union's many sports clubs. He provides various financial and administrative support to clubs, whilst also championing good governance and employability. Tom is a permanent staff link between the Students' Union and the sport-related University staff, whilst the elected Sports Officer changes every year or two. Tom provides daily support to the Sports Officer to ensure they complete their manifesto before their term in post is up. When it comes to playing sport, Tom is a jack of all trades, master of none, although he does love dodgeball!
