Dr Ekkekakis is a frequent speaker at universities, research centers, and scientific conferences in the United States and internationally. He speaks on a broad range of topics related to the science of exercise and physical activity, including the following:
Affective responses to exercise, including their underlying psychobiological mechanisms and their implications for exercise and physical activity behavior
The need for an interdisciplinary approach in the development of exercise prescription guidelines and physical activity recommendations
The measurement of affect (history, key points, basic guidelines)
Exercise in obesity (for broad audiences, including undergraduate students and exercise practitioners)
The search for mechanisms of the sense of exertional physical fatigue (emphasis on neuroscience, highlights the need for interdisciplinary communication in exercise-science research)
Near-infrared spectroscopy for assessing cortical function during exercise (comparison to other imaging methods, basic principles, research applications, practical recommendations)
Critical appraisal for evidence-based practice (workshop/masterclass format, focus on research bias and critically evaluating published randomized controlled trials and meta-analyses)
October 29, 2019: "Combattre nos démons cartésiens: The persistent challenge of achieving disciplinary integration in exercise prescriptions and physical activity recommendations." Invited plenary keynote lecture. Association des Chercheurs en Activités Physiques et Sportives (ACAPS; Association of Researchers in Physical and Sports Activities). Paris, France.
March 5, 2019: "Exercise hedonics: Dose-response patterns, biological mechanisms, and behavioral implications of affective responses to exercise." Keynote lecture, Annual International Forum, Advanced Research Initiative for Human High Performance (ARIHHP), University of Tsukuba, Japan.
October 24, 2018: "Exercise as antidepressant treatment: Progress, challenges and prospects." Keynote lecture. Conference "Sport and physical activity for mental health: From theory to practice." Athens, Greece.
December 12, 2017: "Exercise hedonics: Pleasure-displeasure responses to exercise and their implications for exercise behavior." Keynote lecture, British Psychological Society, Division of Sport and Exercise Psychology. Glasgow, Scotland.
May 19, 2017: "Exercise hedonics: Pleasure-displeasure responses to exercise and their implications for exercise behavior." Keynote lecture. International Symposium on Affective Responses to Exercise. Recife, Brazil.
November 22, 2016: "Exercise hedonics: Pleasure-displeasure responses to exercise and their implications for exercise behavior." Invited keynote lecture, conference entitled "Motor Behavior and emotion: Cognitive and affective factors that impact motor control." University of Lille 3, Lille, France.
February 26, 2016: "Physical exercise as a therapeutic agent: A critical appraisal." Invited lecture. 20th National Congress of the Italian Society of Psychopathology. Milan, Italy.
December 1, 2015: "Exercise prescription as an essential challenge to our disciplinary coherence: The long struggle to affix a third leg to the stool." Invited lecture, annual conference, British Association of Sport and Exercise Sciences. Burton upon Trent, Staffordshire, United Kingdom.
July 15, 2015: "Escape from cognitivism: Exercise as hedonic experience." Keynote lecture, 14th European Congress of Sport Psychology, European Federation of Sport Psychology. Bern, Switzerland.
July 9, 2014: "What's old is new again: The rediscovery of the motivational properties of pleasure in post-cognitivist exercise psychology." Divisional keynote lecture, 28th International Congress of Applied Psychology, International Association of Applied Psychology. Paris, France.
October 18, 2014: "Blood, sweat, and tears in a cognitivist world: Travails of an exercise hedonist (and why you should be one too)." Keynote lecture in Exercise and Sport Psychology, Conference of the Canadian Society for Psychomotor Learning and Sport Psychology (SCAPPS). London, Ontario, Canada.
May 29, 2014: "Ratings of pleasure-displeasure as the emerging third pillar of exercise prescription." Tutorial lecture. Annual meeting of the American College of Sports Medicine. Orlando, Florida.
June 13, 2014: "The reemergence of hedonism in post-cognitivist exercise psychology: Preparing for the field's first veritable paradigmatic transition." Keynote lecture. Annual conference of the North American Society for the Psychology of Sport and Physical Activity. Minneapolis, Minnesota.
October 27, 2012: "The resurrection of psychological hedonism: The motivational implications of exercise-induced pleasure and displeasure." Keynote lecture. PRACTICE Conference. Lisbon, Portugal.
October 8, 2009: "The pleasure and displeasure people feel when they exercise: Methods, theory and implications for exercise prescription and adherence." Invited keynote plenary lecture. Conference of the British Association for Cardiac Rehabilitation. Birmingham, United Kingdom.
British Association of Sport and Exercise Sciences workshop on affective responses to exercise. University of Exeter. Exeter, United Kingdom.
July 22, 2003: "Theoretical integration in the study of affective responses to acute exercise: The dual-mode model". Biddle Young Scholar Lecture in Exercise Psychology, Fédération Européenne de Psychologie des Sports et des Activités Corporelles (FEPSAC; European Federation for the Psychology of Sport and Physical Activity). July 26, 2003, Copenhagen, Denmark.
Pictures from Seminars and Workshops at Universities and Research Centers
December 13, 2017: "Physical activity and public health messaging: Lessons from the recent revival of the intensity debate." Invited seminar. Institute for Sport, Physical Education and Health Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland. [With Professor Nanette Mutrie]
December 14, 2017: "Physical exercise as an antidepressant: How does it work?" Invited lecture. Conference entitled "Aging and Depression: From the fear of falling to the fear of living." Bologna, Italy. [With Dr Martino Belvederi Murri and Dr Tina Zanetidou]
May 18, 2017: "The search for brain mechanisms of the sense of exertional fatigue." Departmental seminar. Department of Physiotherapy. Universidade Federal de Pernambuco. Recife, Brazil. [With Professor Tony Meireles Santos and students]
November 5-6, 2015: "Critical appraisal in the time of bias: Learning to read an article several layers deep." Invited doctoral workshop. Department of Nutrition, Exercise and Sports, University of Copenhagen. Copenhagen, Denmark. [With Professor Anne-Marie Elbe]
July 16, 2019: "The challenge of making exercise feel better." Symposium presentation. 15th European Congress of Sport and Exercise Psychology, University of Münster, Germany. [With Drs Costas Karageorghis, Yvonne Delevoye-Turrell, Leighton Jones, and Jasmin Hutchinson]
July 17, 2019: "The rise of postcognitivist ideas in exercise psychology: will our field‘s first Kuhnian crisis result in a Kuhnian revolution?" Symposium presentation. 15th European Congress of Sport and Exercise Psychology, University of Münster, Germany.
July 14, 2017: "Preparing exercise psychology for its postcognitivist future: Reestablishing the role of affect within dual-process models of human behavior." Sympsium presentation. 14th World Congress of Sport Psychology, International Society of Sport Psychology. Universidad de Sevilla, Spain. [With Drs Leighton Jones, Costas Karageorghis, Florence Kinnafick, Peter Crocker]
July 14, 2017: "Dances with wolves: If exercise becomes medicine, how might the medicines respond?" Sympsium presentation. 14th World Congress of Sport Psychology, International Society of Sport Psychology. Universidad de Sevilla, Spain. [With Drs Melissa Day, Anthony Papathomas, Toni Williams, William Massey]
December 14, 2015: "Affective responses to physical exercise: From experiments to guidelines." Roundtable entitled "Chronic cardiac pathology and major depression: Combined interventions for complex patients." Emilia Romagna Regional Health Service. Modena, Italy.
February 27, 2016: "For exercise to be effective as antidepressant therapy, patients must do it: Insights from contemporary exercise psychology research." Invited lecture. Conference "Il trattamento delle depressioni: Approcci tradizionali e terapie innovative." Genova, Italy. [With Dr Martino Belvederi Murri]
October 18, 2019: "The litmus test for achieving integration in Kinesiology? Developing interdisciplinary exercise prescription guidelines and physical activity recommendations." Distinguished Lecture Series, Department of Kinesiology, Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas.
May 12, 2014: "Walking and affective responses." Invited presentation. "Walking for well-being" workshop, organized by the Scottish Universities Insight Institute. Strathclyde University, Glasgow, Scotland.
July 17, 2013: "TREAD-UK: The fascinating tale of an NHS guideline, physical activity, depression, a press release, and a million pounds of taxpayers' money." Invited departmental seminar. School of Sport and Education, Brunel University. London, United Kingdom. [With Dr Costas Karageorghis]
February 5, 2015: "Hey, young kinesiologist, you want a Nobel Prize? Solve the enigma of fatigue!" Invited seminar presentation. Department of Human Performance, Minnesota State University, Mankato, Minnesota. [With Mark Hartman]
April 10, 2015: "Welcome to the ball, Cinderella: Kinesiology, the Brave New World of Evidence-Based Medicine, and the unforeseen challenge of critical appraisal." Invited departmental colloquium presentation. Department of Kinesiology and Community Health, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Urbana, Illinois. [With Dr Petruzzello and students]
February 13, 2015: "Exercise-is-Medicine meets Evidence-Based Medicine: How prepared is exercise science for the rough-and-tumble reality of EBM?" Invited doctoral seminar presentation. School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation, University of Nebraska Omaha. [With Dr Sara Myers]
October 20, 2014: "Hey, young kinesiologist, you want a Nobel Prize? Solve the enigma of fatigue!" Invited seminar presentation. Department of Kinesiology, McMaster University. Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. [With Dr Kathleen Martin Ginis]
October 8, 2015: "Lessons I've learned from my first 25 years of publishing research in exercise science: The good, the bad, and the ugly." Invited lecture, National Taiwan Sport University, Taipei, Taiwan. [With Dr Yu-Kai Chang et al.]
November 30, 2015: "Critical appraisal in the time of bias: Learning to read an article several layers deep." Departmental seminar, School of Sport, Leeds Beckett University. Leeds, United Kingdom.
November 25, 2016: "Measuring affective responses to exercise." Departmental seminar. Department of Psychology. University of Lille 3, Lille, France. [With Dr Yvonne Delevoye-Turrell et al.]
April 13, 2017: "Exercise hedonics: Pleasure-displeasure responses to exercise and their implications for exercise behavior." Kevser Ermin Memorial Lecture, Department of Health, Exercise Science, and Recreation Management, University of Mississippi. Oxford, Mississippi.
September 19, 2019: "Exercise hedonics: Pleasure-displeasure responses to exercise and their implications for exercise behavior." William Hansel Visiting Scientist Seminar Series, Pennington Biomedical Research Center, Baton Rouge, Louisiana. [With Dr Nicole Fearnbach]
July 9, 2019: "Reflections on science, research, and what really matters." International graduate summer school "Conceptual, theoretical and methodological advances in exercise motivation research: Automaticity and affect." University of Potsdam, Germany.
October 7, 2015: "Pleasure and displeasure in response to exercise: Dose-response patterns, mechanisms, and implications for exercise behavior." Invited lecture, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, Taiwan.
March 4, 2019: "Measuring affective responses." Graduate seminar. Advanced Research Initiative for Human High Performance, University of Tsukuba, Japan.
May 5, 2016: "Exercise hedonics: Pleasure-displeasure responses to exercise and their implications for exercise behavior." Invited keynote lecture, Zeigler Research Forum, College of Nursing and Health Sciences, University of Vermont. Burlington, Vermont.
July 14, 2015: "Critical appraisal in the time of bias: Learning to read an article several layers deep." Workshop, University of Bern, Switzerland.
October 10, 2019: "If you know it's good for you, why don't you do it? Physical activity reconceptualized as the product of interacting reflective and affective processes." Workshop entitled "Incorporating the experimental medicine approach in the development of primary prevention trials for Alzheimer's disease." Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education, National Academies of Science, Engineering, Medicine. Washington, DC. [With Professor Michael Otto]
