Deborah L. Feltz is university distinguished professor of kinesiology at Michigan State University. She received her B.S. degree from the State University of New York at Buffalo. She earned her M.S. and PhD in kinesiology from The Pennsylvania State University under the direction of Daniel M. Landers. She began her career at Michigan State University in 1980 and chaired the Department at Michigan State University from 1989 to 2012. She has devoted more than 35 years to researching the relationship between efficacy beliefs and physical activity, has written over 250 publications, and the book, Self-Efficacy and Sport. Her most recent scholarship has focused on group motivation gains in partnered exercise video games, which has been funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the National Space Biomedical Research Institute, and National Institutes of Health. She has received numerous awards for her research. She is an American Psychological Association Fellow and Fellow of the National Academy of Kinesiology and served as its 61st president. She also served as president of the North American Society for the Study of Sport and Physical Activity in 2008, and received the 2015 Distinguished Scholar Award from this Society.
She has been a member of editorial boards for Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport (section editor), Measurement in Physical Education and Exercise Science, Quest, Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice; and Imagery Research in Physical Activity, Sport, Exercise, and Performance Psychology; and Associate Editor for Frontiers in Movement Science and Sport Psychology and European Journal of Sport Science; a member on the National Research Council’s Committee on Techniques for the Enhancement of Human Performance; and on the sport psychology advisory and sport science advisory committees of the USOC.