Shannon Jette
Dr. Jette's research focuses on social, cultural and historical aspects of knowledge production in the disciplines of kinesiology, medicine, and public health. She is particularly interested in studying exercise and fitness practices as technologies of health that have the potential to shape how we understand and experience our bodies.
Dr. Jette is part of the Physical Cultural Studies (PCS) research specialization and is co-founder of the NatureRx@UMD Laboratory at UMD.
Departments/Units
Areas of Interest
Science and Technology Studies; Gender Studies; Sociology of health and illness
Dr. Jette received her MA (2004) and PhD (2009) in Kinesiology from the University of British Columbia and conducted postdoctoral research at the Simone de Beauvoir Institute at Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec before coming to the University of Maryland in August 2011. Her graduate and postdoctoral research were funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Dr. Jette uses a range of qualitative research methodologies (including media and discourse analysis, in-depth interviews, focus groups, ethnographic techniques) to examine: the production of knowledge about gender, health and physical activity; how this knowledge has been (and is) put to use in the operation of power in differing socio-historical contexts; and how individuals, especially those from marginalized groups, negotiate various health-related messages.
MA (2004) and PhD PhD Kinesiology (2009) University of British Columbia
KNES 285: History of Physical Culture, Sport, and Science in America;
KNES 400: Foundations of Public Health in Kinesiology;
KNES 615: Body, Culture, and Physical Activity
Graduate Faculty Mentor of the Year (2020)
Selected peer-reviewed journals:
Jette, S. (accepted, in press). Studying humans and non-humans in risk governance: How actor-network theory can help us do ‘non-modern’ research. Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise, and Health. ( Accepted June 3 2025) https://doi.org/10.1080/2159676X.2025.2516526
Justin, T., Jette, S., & Tchangalova, N. (2025). How “race” Is used in U.S. peer-reviewed studies of cardiovascular health and cardiorespiratory fitness: A scoping review. Kinesiology Review, 14(3), 370-381. https://doi.org/10.1123/kr.2024-0044.
Posbergh, A., & Jette, S. (2025). Stories of governance: Examining “consensus” in the IOC’s Consensus Statements on REDs (Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport). Sociology of Sport Journal. Advance online publication. https://doi-org.proxy-um.researchport.umd.edu/10.1123/ssj.2023-0219
Posbergh, A., & Jette, S. (2025). Troubling dualisms: Understanding the creation and implementation of protective policies in elite women’s sport. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 60(1), 3-24. https://doi-org.proxy-um.researchport.umd.edu/10.1177/10126902241259197
Nelson, M., & Jette, S. (2024). Weighing the body: Women Olympic weightlifters negotiating weight class, body image, and the unruly body. Sociology of Sport Journal, (41)1, 99-107. https://doi.org/10.1123/ssj.2022-0152
Nelson, M., & Jette, S. (2023). Muscle moves mass: Constructing a culture of weight loss in American Olympic Weightlifting. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 58(5), 765–782. https://doi-org.proxy-um.researchport.umd.edu/10.1177/10126902221120183
Justin, T., & Jette, S. (2022). “That chart ain’t for us”: How Black women understand 'obesity', health and physical Activity. Health: An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Social Study of Health, Illness, and Medicine, 26(5), 605-21. https://doi.org/10.1177/13634593211046844
Posbergh, A., & Jette, S. (2022). “Track’s coed, I never thought of it as separate”: Challenging, reproducing, and negotiating gender stereotypes in track and field. Sociology of Sport Journal, (39)1, 47-55.
Esmonde, K., & Jette., S. (2021). ‘We are not a nation of softies, but we could become one’: Exploring the materiality of fitness testing in the President’s Council on Youth Fitness. Somatechnics, 11(3), 395-412.
Jette, S., Esmonde, K., & Maier, J. (2019 available online). Exploring prenatal physical activity at the ‘postgenomic turn’: A transdisciplinary journey. Leisure Sciences, 41(1-2), 36-53. https://doi.org/10.1080/01490400.2018.1539683
Jette, S., Maier, J., Esmonde, K., & Davis, C. (2017). Promoting prenatal exercise from a sociocultural and life-course perspective: An “embodied” conceptual framework, Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, 88(3), 269-281.
Selected book chapters:
Jette, S. (2023). Materializing risk in the pregnant athlete: Using material-semiotic tools to examine black-boxed and dis-qualified ‘facts’ in the IOC evidence summaries. In L. Spowart & K. McGannon (Eds.), Motherhood and sport: Collective stories of identity and difference (pp. 76-88). New York, NY: Routledge.
Jette, S., & Esmonde, K. (2020). The (in)active body multiple: An examination of how prenatal exercise ‘matters’. In M. MacDonald & J. Sterling (Eds.), Sports, society and technology anthology. Palgrave Macmillan.
Jette, S., Esmonde, K., Andrews, D., & Pluim, C. (2020). Big bodies, big data: Unpacking the Fitnessgram® black box. In J. Newman, H. Thorpe, & D. Andrews (Eds.), Sport, physical culture, and the moving body: Materialisms, technologies, ecologies (pp. 131-150) Rutgers University Press.