School of Business

Kalyn McDonough, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor at the Center for Sport Leadership. She
earned her doctorate from the Joseph R. Biden Jr. School of Public Policy &
Administration at the University of Delaware and holds a master’s degree in social work
from the University of Pennsylvania. Her work is focused in sport for social justice and
sport for development primarily among youth involved in the justice system. She has
taught team dynamics, sociology of sport, youth sport leadership and development,
introduction to sport management, and sport events and facilities at both the graduate
and undergraduate level.

She currently leads the Youth Justice Sport Partnership (YJSP) which is a sport-based
university-community partnership between CSL and Virginia’s Department of Juvenile
Justice’s Bon Air Juvenile Correctional Facility. The partnership operates a sport-based
healing-centered life-skills program with youth involved in the justice system. CSL
Graduate Assistants are on-site at Bon Air to run weekly programming and also are
instrumental in program development and evaluation.

Prior to joining CSL, Kalyn was a Fulbright Future Scholar in Australia and Visiting
Scholar at the University of Melbourne. She was honored with the 2023 Australia
Project Support Award, which she used to support her research and practice projects on
access to sport and physical activity among youth in detention in Australia. 
Kalyn started her work as a co-founder and co-head coach of a boys lacrosse team at
the Ferris School for Boys, a juvenile facility operated by the State of Delaware’s
Division of Youth Rehabilitative Services. The team was one of the first lacrosse
programs in a secure facility, and completed against other public and private schools in
Delaware.