Dr. Heather J. Gibson is a Professor in the Department of Tourism, Hospitality and Event Management, at the University of Florida.  Her research interests leisure, tourism and sport behavior in mid and later life, women as tourists, sport tourism (specializing in sport events and active sport tourism, and perceived risk in tourism. With her educational background as the area in sport and tourism, as the area of sport tourism emerged she was well positioned to author some of the seminal papers. One of her current projects combines her interests in sport tourism and gender with a focus on the influence of participation in elite youth sport on families and the travel associated with participation. Professor Gibson has an extensive publication record across the fields of leisure, tourism and sport. She has edited/co-edited three books: Sport Tourism: Concepts and Theories, a collection of original essays on this type of tourism and co-edited Leisure and Aging: Theory and Practice and most recently Active sport tourism: Global insights and future directions. She teaches classes in tourism theory, sport tourism and a PhD seminar in leisure theories. For the past 15 years she has lead study abroad programs to Australia and Fiji with a focus on sustainability. In fall 2017, she was a faculty member on the Semester at Sea program. Dr. Gibson has witnessed first-hand the powerful influence that experiential international education can have and this has led her to develop a number of research projects in this area.  Professor Gibson is a Fellow of the Academy of Leisure Sciences, the International Academy for the Study of Tourism and the Academy of Distinguished Teaching Scholars at the University of Florida. She is a former Chief Managing Editor of Leisure Studies, an Associate Editor for the Annals of Tourism Research and the Journal of Sport & Tourism, an Editorial Board member the World Leisure Journal, the Journal of Sport Management, the Journal of Policy Research in Leisure, Tourism and Events. She has been a member of World Leisure since the mid-1990s and chaired the World Leisure Women and Gender Commission for over a decade which has now transitioned to the Leisure and Gender SIG.