Ema Geron (International Fellow)
Dr. Ema Geron was born in Bulgaria on 13 October 1920 and passed away in Jerusalem, Israel. Dr. Geron began her academic career at the National Sport Academy in Bulgaria. She was promoted to Full Professor, and chaired Psychology Department in NSP, Bulgaria. A pioneer in Sport Psychology, she published several of the first books in the world in Sport Psychology. In Bulgaria, she established the first sport laboratory aimed at studying the mental and emotional components related to elite sport performance. Her research centered on psychological preparation of athletes for competition, concentration and volition, and psychological characteristics of athletes as a function of sport-type; all of which were considered milestones for the newly established domain of sport psychology. Her research on gymnastics with a special focus on female athletes may be considered as the dawn of the gender perspective in sport psychology.
In 1973, Dr. Geron emigrated to Israel in 1973 with her husband to Israel as a consequence of political problems that her husband had encountered; after which she was no longer considered a representative of Bulgaria in various International forums, and was forced to resign from all her duties, including the FEPSAC presidency. She was also expelled from all her positions and duties by the Bulgarian organization that she has led and established
Once in Israel, Dr. Ema Geron was the first to develop the sport psychology laboratory in what is now known as the Ribstein Center for Sport Medicine and Research) at the Wingate Institute in the city of Netanya. During her work in Israel, Professor Ema Geron taught sport psychology, motivation in sport, and motor learning to the undergraduate and graduate classes using her book entitled Mental Preparation for Athletes, which was translated from German to Hebrew in 1976). While there, she continued to conduct research with her colleagues and graduate students. She edited several books, and published scientific and applied articles on sport psychology and motor learning (mainly in Hebrew), and continued to do so long after retiring at the age of 65. She also published several textbooks in English, including Children in Sport, and Introduction to Sport Psychology. Ema kept to a rigorous writing schedule until a few months before she died at the age of 90 with the publication of her last textbooks, titled Motivation in Sport and Physical Education, and Motivation for Physical Activity and Sport; the latter being co-authored with Shulamit Raviv and Ronnie Lidor.
Ema was also instrumental in co-founding the European Association for Sport Psychology, where she was elected as its first President. She considered this organization as “her baby,” and navigated the federation through the first stormy years. Later on in Israel she established the Israel Sport Psychology and Sociology Society. She was elected as its first President, and went on to organize several more international and national conferences in sport psychology and motor learning in Israel.
Ema continued her involvement in international organizations by serving as the Israeli liaison of the National Academy of Kinesiology and the International Association of Applied Psychology (IAAP). For her major contributions to the field of Sport and Exercise Psychology, the ISSP awarded her the Distinguished International Sport Psychologist Award in 1993; an honor given to only five scholars since the establishment of the society in 1965.
On March 11 of 2011, the international Sport Psychology community lost a very unique person, a strong woman in the mostly male-dominated sport psychology world at that time, a great colleague, and gentle friend. Dr. Ema Geron will be remembered as a great woman who left a great legacy. Let her soul rest in peace.
Adapted from International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 9, 99-101 (2011).
