A new fellowship for a groundbreaking leisure researcher
By ETHAN SIMMONS
As a graduate student, Liza Berdychevsky didn’t expect much fanfare when she first visited a Leisure Research Symposium as a “future scholar,” on behalf of The Academy of Leisure Sciences (TALS). In 2008, she was completing her master’s program and searching for a university to complete her doctorate.
Yet when she began to meet the academy’s cadre of experienced leisure scientists, Berdychevsky felt seen, welcomed and valued, “almost like a celebrity,” she said.
Seventeen years later, Berdychevsky—now an associate professor of Recreation, Sport and Tourism at Illinois—has been named a TALS Fellow for her continued contributions to leisure sciences.
“It's one of the biggest honors there is in our field,” Berdychevsky said. “I certainly didn't expect it to happen so early. I'm very grateful to my colleagues’ recognition of my work, and the fact that they felt that it's time.”
Berdychevsky arrived at the Urbana-Champaign campus in 2013, after completing her doctorate at the University of Florida. She quickly made her mark studying risky leisure behaviors, such as sexual risk taking, violence, and delinquent practices, along with sexual leisure and positive sexuality across gender and lifespan.
Her work often focuses on vulnerable populations, including older adults facing ageist stereotypes around their sexuality, transgender people, high-risk young travelers and people affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Her name will join the TALS Fellows alongside a select group of scholars, including many of the same researchers she looked up to as a budding academic.
She’ll share the mantle with several of her colleagues from RST at Illinois. Previous fellows include Professor Monika Stodolska, a frequent collaborator; Professor Laura Payne, director of the Office of Recreation and Park Resources; Associate Professors Toni Liechty and Julie Son; and Professor and current RST Department Head Carla Santos.
Santos said a TALS fellowship provides “global recognition for your research,” which can lead to keynote speaking opportunities and bolster recruitment of top graduate students.
“Her work offers direction and examples that influence practices on how to advance positive sexuality, including sex as leisure in later life, and is informed by theory and empirical evidence,” Santos said. “Dr. Berdychevsky is undoubtedly pushing the boundaries of what leisure scholarship can, and should, become.”
Berdychevsky is a frequent contributor to prominent leisure, tourism, sexual health, and aging journals, including Leisure Sciences, Leisure Studies, Tourism Management, Annals of Tourism Research, Journal of Sex Research, Archives of Sexual Behavior, The Gerontologist, and Innovation in Aging. She has also published two books co-edited with University of Otago Professor Neil Carr: “Sex in Tourism: Exploring the Light and the Dark” (2021) and “Innovation and Impact of Sex as Leisure in Research and Practice (2022). Her third book, “Sex in Hospitality: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” is under contract.
“If you look at the mission of TALS, it's an organization for scholars who are focused on the fundamental value of leisure and how we can promote it through scholarship, education, advocacy, and service,” Berdychevsky said. “They were pivotal to most of my choices throughout my career. Many of them feel like a family to me.”
Berdychevsky will accept her fellowship at the 2025 TALS Research and Teaching Conference, hosted March 5-7 in Pittsburgh.
The Academy of Leisure Sciences (TALS) was founded in 1980 by former leaders of the Society of Park and Recreation Educators, including Allen Sapora, a pioneer in recreation education and research at Illinois and former RST department head.
(To learn more about Associate Professor Berdychevsky’s work, visit her faculty page here.)