Payoshni Mitra

Dr. Payoshni Mitra, Executive Director, Humans of Sport

Dr Mitra is a former badminton player and coach turned gender and sport scholar, a prominent athlete rights advocate, and a leading campaigner in the abolition of sex testing policies in women’s sport. She has more than a decade-long experience of working closely with women athletes across Asia and Africa to enable them to address human rights violations in sports. Her advocacy work on inclusion and non-discrimination in sport has influenced important social, institutional, and structural changes on an international scale.  With her research and advocacy work, Dr Mitra has been able to help athletes win legal cases on complex gender issues on more than one occasion. She was instrumental in assisting Indian athlete Dutee Chand to regain her rights to compete in athletics and was one of the ten-member team who testified for South African Olympian Caster Semenya at the Court of Arbitration for Sport. Dr Mitra is the Founder and Executive Director of Humans of Sport,  an advocacy organization focused on athlete rights, equity, and inclusion in global sports governance.