Annual Athena SWAN Guest Speaker Lecture

Double Paralympic gold medallist Danielle Brown MBE has proven that setbacks do not have to be a barrier to success. We are delighted to welcome Danielle as Athena SWAN Guest Speaker at our Walsall Campus, the home of our Institute of Sport.

Taking up archery on her fifteenth birthday was the first step in Danielle's journey that saw her power to Paralympic glory. Danielle spent her entire international career as world number 1, winning gold in two consecutive Paralympic Games and three World Championships. She also accomplished something that very few disabled athletes manage when she transitioned onto the able-bodied team. 2010 saw her become the first disabled athlete to represent England in an able-bodied discipline at the Commonwealth Games, where she took the gold medal in the team event. Danielle’s proudest achievement is winning the gold medal on home soil in London 2012. Despite facing very heavy expectations, she fought a very exciting competition to take the gold medal on the last arrow.

During her career Danielle invested a lot of her time into researching neuroscience, NLP and performance psychology, discovering that it is an athlete's mentality that determines who gets to the top and stays there. Danielle is very interested in how gender diversity affects experience and has been doing her own research in this area. She is now working as a speaker, mentor and coach, using cutting edge research and her experiences to help others, strive for excellence, develop skills for success and achieve big goals.