Dr. Sarah Hillyer is the founder of Sport 4 Peace, a non-profit organization dedicated to improving the quality and availability of sporting opportunities for girls and women around the world. Over the past 20 years, Dr. Hillyer has designed and imp
...MoreDr. Sarah Hillyer is the founder of Sport 4 Peace, a non-profit organization dedicated to improving the quality and availability of sporting opportunities for girls and women around the world. Over the past 20 years, Dr. Hillyer has designed and implemented hundreds of sport for peace and development projects in Iran, Iraq, Israel, Palestine, Tunisia, Morocco, Jordan, Turkey, China, Inner Mongolia, Zimbabwe, Mexico, and Brazil. Most recently, Dr. Hillyer served as the Generations For Peace, HM King Abdullah II, post-doctoral fellow at Georgetown University.
Dr. Hillyer’s research interests include the intersections of sport and peacebuilding, community development, diplomacy, and the use of sport as a tool for effective and positive social change. Her dissertation titled, “Women’s Softball in Iran: An Auto-ethnographic Journey,” detailed her decade-long experiences as a woman’s softball coach in Iran and examined the role of sport as a tool for meaningful dialogue and peacebuilding between Iranian and American women.
Dr. Hillyer received her PhD from The University of Tennessee in Sport and Exercise Science with a concentration in Sport Sociology. Currently, Sarah teaches Service Learning: Sport and Community Development, a course created to help meet the health and social needs of refugees living in Knoxville, TN.
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