Biography

Francesca Vitali is Assistant Professor and Senior Researcher (RTD-B) at the University of Verona (UNIVR). Her research agenda has been on the understanding of the (1) motivational processes and prevention of early youth dropout from sport; (2) psychosocial benefits of sport and physical activity (PA) for patients, special populations, and people with and without disabilities; (3) psychobiosocial (PBS) states and motivational processes in Physical Education; (4) gender differences and gender stereotypes in sport and PA; (5) student-athlete dual career and career transitions; (6) optimization of performance and well-being in endurance sports.

Since the academic year 2017/2018 she is the Scientific Director of the Academic Coach project, a peer-tutorship project offered to support the dual career of students-athletes at the UNIVR.

Furthermore, she is currently the Editor for the Psicologia dello Sport e dell'Esercizio (En. tr. Sport and Exercise Psychology), the new official journal of the Associazione Italiana Psicologia dello Sport e dell'esercizio (AIPS, Italian Association of Sport and Exercise Psychology) (which replaced the Giornale Italiano di Psicologia dello Sport). She is Section Editor of Sport and Exercise Psychology for the Sport Sciences for Health - SISMeS (Società Italiana di Scienze Motorie e Sportive)'s Official Journal.

She chaired the XXth AIPS 2014 National Congress which has been held in Rovereto, Italy. She co-chaired the XXIth AIPS 2016 National Congress which has been held in Bologna, Italy. From 2014 to 2016 she has been the National President of the Associazione Italiana Psicologia dello Sport e dell'esercizio (AIPS). From 2024, she is the Vice-president of the AIPS.

As Sport Psychologist she has been working with youth top-level athletes of different sports (i.e., Shooting Italian Olympic Youth National Team; Trentino' Junior Cross Country Skiing Team; Track and Field Youth National Team; Italian Women’s Rugby National Team).

She collaborates as Expert with the School of Sport of Sport e Salute, funded by Ministry of Sport and Youth Politics. Since 2019 she has a “Consultancy with training assignment” collaboration with the Italian Rugby Federation.

Since 2017 she is the scientific responsible of the Center of studies of the Assist - the Italian Association of Female Athletes.