{"id":13317,"date":"2026-01-27T12:17:51","date_gmt":"2026-01-27T18:17:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin-new\/?post_type=campus_story&p=13317"},"modified":"2026-01-27T12:17:52","modified_gmt":"2026-01-27T18:17:52","slug":"uw-milwaukee-professor-uses-sport-psychology-research-to-solve-real-world-problems","status":"publish","type":"campus_story","link":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/story\/uw-milwaukee-professor-uses-sport-psychology-research-to-solve-real-world-problems\/","title":{"rendered":"UW-Milwaukee professor uses sport psychology research to solve real-world problems"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo:<\/a>
Barbara Meyer is internationally recognized for her expertise in performance psychology. In addition to her role as director of UWM’s Sport and Performance Psychology Laboratory, she’s provided services to world-class athletes, professional organizations and college teams in a dozen different sports. (UWM Photo\/Andy Manis)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Barbara Meyer can\u2019t help herself. Whether she\u2019s working with Olympic athletes, advising a college soccer team or standing in line at the grocery store, she\u2019s always analyzing performance.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll be in the checkout line and say to my husband, if the cashier and the bagger set up a system and were planning and communicating together, they could be so much more effective,\u201d said Meyer, a professor of sport and performance psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. \u201cAnd my husband\u2019s like, \u2018Barbara, don\u2019t bother them.\u2019 But I see performance in everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Meyer, it\u2019s not about perfection; it\u2019s about potential and improvement. And honing every aspect \u2014 physical, mental and emotional \u2014 to help people perform.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just fascinated with performance,\u201d she said. \u201cHow people become the best and stay the best.\u201d<\/p>\n

That fascination has taken her from university campuses to professional locker rooms and Olympic ski slopes. It\u2019s enabled her to apply her approach not only to athletics but to anything that requires focus, resilience and excellence. As director of\u00a0UWM\u2019s Sport and Performance Psychology Laboratory<\/a>, Meyer and her students advance new research to tackle real-world problems related to performance.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is nothing more energizing for me than getting in the trenches,\u201d Meyer said. \u201cI have the best job in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

A passion for teaching and a talent for training<\/h3>\n

Raised in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, Meyer played tennis at UW-Eau Claire and planned to become a dentist. But a well-timed article her mother sent about the emerging field of sport psychology sparked her curiosity. Eventually, that interest led her to Michigan State, where she earned a master\u2019s and a PhD in health education, counseling psychology and human performance.<\/p>\n

In grad school, after she spent weeks preparing a single 50-minute statistics lecture, Meyer also discovered a passion for teaching.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce I got up there, I never wanted to sit down,\u201d she said. \u201cI loved the challenge of trying to make the complicated simple. If I could connect with students, reduce their anxiety and increase their confidence, I could help them perform better.\u201d<\/p>\n

Following her graduation in 1991, Meyer came to UWM as a visiting professor, and several years later a tenure track position opened up. \u201cThis has been my one and only real job ever since,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Meyer\u2019s off-campus clients might disagree. Over the years, Meyer has provided services to world-class athletes, professional organizations and college teams in a dozen different sports, helping them gain a competitive edge and achieve success.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s also worked every Winter Olympics since 2002, when an Australian aerial skier who\u00a0won a gold medal<\/a>\u00a0called Meyer her \u201csecret weapon.\u201d Meyer consults with athletes on returning from injury, concentrating under pressure, overcoming fear of failure and performing at their best.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe most humbling thing is that people invite you on their journey,\u201d she said. \u201cWhether it\u2019s a first-generation student pursuing their degree or an athlete chasing a lifelong dream, they\u2019re trusting you to help.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meyer\u2019s Olympic streak continues next month, when she\u2019ll be working with the Australian team at the 2026 Winter Games in Italy.<\/p>\n

Real problems, real solutions<\/h3>\n

At UWM, Meyer\u2019s work extends beyond athletes to include tactical and corporate populations \u2014 police officers, military members, business leaders \u2014 who also operate in high-performance environments.<\/p>\n

For example, Meyer and co-instructor\u00a0Kyle Ebersole<\/a>, a performance and sport physiologist, recently collaborated with the Milwaukee Fire Department to better understand the retirement transition of firefighters \u2014 many of whom face challenges related not only to career change, but shifts in identity and social support.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was nothing out there on the topic,\u201d she said. \u201cSo, we used the sport research of professional athletes transitioning to retirement as our foundation and collected data on firefighters to see what their experiences were like.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another time, a college hockey player was looking for tips to mentally prepare to compete against his brother. Again, there was no existing body of work on the subject, so Meyer\u2019s team created it, and the project resulted in three published studies. Through her integration of teaching, research and service, Meyer has helped position UWM as a leader in performance psychology.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe aren\u2019t in an ivory tower,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019re out engaging in the community and doing the work, and I think that\u2019s what makes our program unique.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Written by James Carlton<\/p>\n

Link to original story: https:\/\/uwm.edu\/news\/uwm-professor-uses-sport-psychology-research-to-solve-real-world-problems\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Barbara Meyer can\u2019t help herself. Whether she\u2019s working with Olympic athletes, advising a college soccer team or standing in line at the grocery store, she\u2019s always analyzing performance. \u201cI\u2019ll be in the checkout line and say to my husband, if the cashier and the bagger set up a system and were planning and communicating together, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":13318,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","institution":[107],"story_category":[147,146],"class_list":["post-13317","campus_story","type-campus_story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","institution-uw-milwaukee","story_category-community","story_category-research-innovation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/campus_story\/13317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/campus_story"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/campus_story"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13317"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"institution","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/institution?post=13317"},{"taxonomy":"story_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/story_category?post=13317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}