Lauren S. Morimoto, Ph.D.

Office

Advising Area

• Interdisciplinary/Pre-OT

Biography

Lauren Morimoto takes a transdisciplinary approach to teaching and research in kinesiology. Her education (B.A.s in Dramatic Art and History, M.A. in Education, and Ph.D. in Educational Policy and Leadership with a cognate in Black Studies) and experiences studying and working abroad in Denmark and the United Kingdom shaped her interest in exploring human movement from multiple perspectives. Recently, she ran a small narrative medicine pilot program, and hopes to secure another small grant to run the program for a second semester, to allow future allied health professionals examine how their identities inform their experiences as students and their interactions with patients and clients. Her research on race, ethnicity, and sport – along with her experiences as a woman of color with a disability – cemented her commitment to equity, diversity, and inclusion. Along with teaching in the Kinesiology Department, Dr. Morimoto served as Sonoma State’s Director of Diversity & Inclusive Excellence from 2012-2018 and established, and continues to coordinate, the Sport & Social Justice Lecture Series, bringing activists like Dr. Tommie Smith, Amanda Blackhorse, and the Diaz brothers (McFarland, USA) to campus. Outside of her campus activity, she is the current President of the Sonoma County chapter of the Japanese American Citizens League and delegate to the national JACL. In her spare time, she enjoys learning Japanese, crocheting, swimming, and watching all the ESPN channels.

Education

• Ph.D., The Ohio State University
• B.A., University of California, Berkeley

Academic Interests

Race, ethnicity, and sports; the American Civil Rights Movement and athlete activism; narrative medicine; Japanese American sport history; Japanese American labor history in Hawai’i; autoethnography as research method to explore intersections of identities; anti-Black racism and its impacts in education and sport; gender, race, and class ideologies in sports films and advertisements; application of physics to human movement and sports; and disability, race, and human movement.

Selected Publications & Presentations

• Morimoto, L.S.  (April 2019).  Asian American perspectives.  In Leeja Carter (Ed.)  Feminist Applied Sport Psychology: From Theory to Practice.  New York: Routledge.
• Morimoto, L.S.  (April 2019).  Disability, race, and gender.  In Leeja Carter (Ed.)  Feminist Applied Sport Psychology: From Theory to Practice. New York: Routledge.
• Carter, L., Oglesby, C., Morimoto, L.S., Peters, H.J., and Peterson, T.R.  Doing feminist sport psychology: A call to action.  In Leeja Carter (Ed.)  Feminist Applied Sport Psychology: From Theory to Practice. New York: Routledge.
• Morimoto, L.S.  (2018).  Sports & the Civil Rights Movement.  In Pamela Grundy and Brad Austin (Eds.)  Teaching American History through Sports. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press. 
• Morimoto, L. S.  (2015).  Barefoot football and the construction of local identity on Kaua’i.  Amerasia Journal 41(2), 2-23.
• Morimoto, L.S.  (2008).  Teaching as transgression: The autoethnography of a fat physical education instructor.  Proteus: A Journal of Ideas 25, 29-36.
• Lewis, T., and Morimoto, L.S.  Jumpstart Program for an individual with cystic fibrosis. PacRim International Conference on Disability & Diversity.  Honolulu, HI.  April 2016. 
• Morimoto, L.S.  Service learning: A means to reduce implicit bias in kinesiology undergraduates?  National Association of Kinesiology in Higher Education (NAKHE) Conference.  San Diego, CA.  January 2016.
• Bryan, R.R. and Morimoto, L.S. Beyond X’s and O’s: The state of coach education in California community colleges and universities.  California Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance.  Santa Clara, CA.  October 2013.
• Morimoto, L.S.  But does sport really matter? Employing sport to expose and interrogate “new racism.”  National Conference on Race and Ethnicity in American Higher Education (NCORE) Annual Conference.  San Diego, CA.  May 2009.