Sports psychologist Mustafa Sarkar has gained international recognition, winning a major award for his PhD dissertation. Mustafa (OE 1997–2004) travelled to Phoenix, Arizona, to be presented with the Association for Applied Sport Psychology (AASP)’s 2016 Doctoral Dissertation Award in front of more than 1,000 conference delegates.
He is one of very few British psychologists to have gained such recognition from the AASP, which is dominated by Americans and Canadians. His PhD dissertation focused on resilience, one of his main professional interests, and he had the opportunity to present his findings at the conference at a panel discussion. He received his award from 2015–2016 AASP President Brent Walker.
In a letter congratulating him on the award, current AASP President Angus Mugford wrote: “In my opinion, your study will make a solid contribution to the knowledge base in sport psychology.”
The award was only the latest professional accolade for Mustafa, who is a Senior Lecturer in Sport and Exercise Psychology at Nottingham Trent University. He teaches both undergraduates and postgraduates, and leads the postgraduate module, Current Issues in Sport and Exercise Psychology.
At QE, Mustafa took A-levels in Economics, Chemistry and Mathematics and then, after a gap year, went to Loughborough University. He graduated in July 2008 with a first-class honours degree in Sport and Exercise Science.
He then went on to complete a Postgraduate Diploma in Psychology (with distinction) from Middlesex University. In 2009, he was named Xcel Sports Student of the Year, with the judges praising him for his academic work, for coaching cricket with Loughborough school children, for climbing five UK mountains for charity and for running the London Marathon for charity, raising £2,350.
Other awards he has won include Loughborough University’s Sir Robert Martin Faculty Prize for academic and non-academic achievements and the Head of School’s Postgraduate Prize for Academic Excellence, awarded annually to the student with the highest overall mark in a Master’s Programme. He also received the British Association of Sport and Exercise Sciences (BASES) Master’s Dissertation of the Year Award in 2011. In 2015, he won the British Psychological Society Division of Sport and Exercise Psychology PhD award.
Mustafa is married to Tasnim, a qualified speech therapist.