Dr. Carly Adams
Dr. Carly Adams was born in Kincardine, Ontario a small town on the shores of Lake Huron, on the traditional lands and treaty territory of the Saugeen Ojibway Nation. She completed her Bachelor of Human Kinetics at the University of Windsor with a specialization in Sport Management (2001) and PhD at Western University (formerly the University of Western Ontario) with a focus on Sport History (2007).
She joined the Kinesiology & PE department at the University of Lethbridge in 2007.
Dr. Adams is a Board of Governor’s Research Chair (Tier 1) and the co-Director of Tsi Nik Kapi ~ the Centre for Oral History and Tradition. She served as the Editor of Sport History Review from 2016-2024, the oldest and one of the leading academic journals in the field of sport history. From 2018-2023 Dr. Adams was appointed to a 5-year term on the honoured members selection committee for Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame and in this role helped decide who was inducted to the Order of Sport. Most recently, Dr. Adams was voted in as the president-elect for the North American Society for Sport History.
“One of the highlights of my time as a Professor at the University of Lethbridge was representing the university as the Faculty Exchange Professor at Hokkai-Gakuen University in Sapporo, Japan. I taught in the Canadian Studies Program there during the Fall 2022 semester. It was an amazing experience for me and for my family.”
~ Dr. Carly Adams
As an oral historian, Dr. Adams’ research focusses on the place of community, lived experience, and gender within twentieth-century Canadian historical, social and cultural contexts. Currently, Dr. Adams is the co-lead of the Nikkei Memory Capture Project (see http://nmcp.ca) in collaboration with historian Dr. Darren J Aoki at the University of Plymouth, UK. The NMCP explores the cultural and social history of Canadian Nikkei (people of Japanese descent) between the 1950s and the present. It records memories of everyday life and gives voice to the experiences shaping this period when Nikkei lives and communities – ruptured and destroyed during the Second World War by state- directed racial persecution – were built anew. Part of the project focusses on the leisure and sport experiences of Japanese Canadian exploring histories of the Japanese Canadian curling bonspiel, the Sugar Beets Baseball League, Japanese minyo (folk) dancing, and the role of hockey in Japanese Canadian families. The project has involved over 20 undergraduate and graduate student (MA and PhD) research assistants and has been funded through a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Insight Grant (2019-2025). In 2023, the project was shortlisted for the Governor Generals History Award for Excellence in Community Programming and most recently the collaboration was awarded the 2025 National Council of Public History Outstanding Public History Project Award – Small Institution.
Dr. Adams is currently supervising three PhD students and two MA students:
Stacey Leavitt, PhD CSPT, “’If it Works for Our Boys…Is This Good Enough for Our Girls?’”: Issues of Governance in Girls’ and Women’s Ice Hockey.”
Darcy Tamayose, PhD CSPT, “Addressing Unfinished Agendas’ and Advancing Knowledge: Southern Alberta Okinawan Canadian Diaspora, 1907-present.”
Elaine Toth, PhD CSPT, “Inter-racial Relationships: How Post-War Southern Alberta Japanese Canadian Couples Negotiated Cross Cultural Experiences.”
Dillon Apsassin-Flamont, MA CSPT, “Indigenous Wellness Histories as Written Through Kinesics: Contested Histories.”
Tobore Onookome-Okome, MA WGST, “Black Women in Canadian University Sport: The Implications of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Policies.”
Dr. Adams teaches courses in KNES and CSPT including KNES 2130: Humanities Perspectives; KNES 4400: Canadian Sport History; CSPT 5103/7103 Qualitative Interviewing. For more about Dr. Adams’ research and publications see: https://www.ulethbridge.ca/directory/person/carly.adams