Student membership
A professional home while you are still completing formal study in sports science, exercise science, kinesiology, coaching, health, or human performance.
Emerging professionals · A global program
The profession is
waiting for you.
For ambitious students and newly established professionals prepared to turn serious study into serious work.
Explore travel scholarshipsFrom study to profession
Your education should lead into a professional community, not end at graduation.
ACFP Emerging Professionals serves university students and professionals generally within their first three years of practice. It is designed for people studying or beginning work in sports science, exercise science, kinesiology, strength and conditioning, coaching, physical activity, health, and human performance.
The program does not replace a degree, university, or professional credential. It provides the relationships, applied education, professional standards, and opportunities to contribute that help formal study become a durable professional life.
What becomes possible
Enter the room before your résumé is finished.
Faculty mentorship
Structured access to practitioners, scholars, clinicians, and educators who can help translate academic preparation into consequential professional work.
Research and publication
Opportunities to submit posters, present developing work, contribute research commentary, and learn the disciplines of responsible professional publication.
Applied laboratories
A place to coach, observe, test, and defend decisions rather than allowing knowledge to remain safely trapped in a lecture hall.
Career formation
Conversations about professional identity, graduate study, first positions, ethical practice, scope, leadership, and building a career with substance.
International exchange
A global cohort learning from American resources while contributing perspectives, practices, and questions that improve the profession in every country represented.
The ACFP Global Access Fellowship
Travel should enlarge a promising career, not place it under financial strain.
Travel scholarshipsBring the world
Bring the world
into the room.
Promising professionals should not miss transformative education merely because they live far from it.
The Global Access Fellowship is being developed to help exceptional students and emerging professionals attend ACFP conferences, institutes, and the Annual Congress in the United States without assuming substantial travel costs.
Awards may include program tuition, shared or individual lodging, and a need based travel stipend. International recipients may also receive reasonable supporting documentation for independent visa applications. ACFP cannot guarantee a visa or admission to the United States.
Register fellowship interestThe fellowship is in development. Funding levels, award numbers, eligibility rules, and application dates will be announced before awards are made. Registering interest is not an application or guarantee of funding.
How selection will work
Promise matters. So does access.
The fellowship will not be a popularity contest or an award for polished social media. Selection will favor evidence of curiosity, discipline, contribution, and the likelihood that attendance will matter.
Express interest
Tell the College about your course of study, professional direction, location, and the ACFP program you hope to attend.
Submit a concise case
Selected applicants will provide a short statement, academic or professional reference, résumé or curriculum vitae, and a description of financial need.
Merit and access review
Awards will consider promise, seriousness of purpose, contribution to the cohort, financial circumstances, and the value of international and geographic representation.
Attend and contribute
Recipients participate fully, meet with an assigned faculty contact, and prepare a short reflection or professional contribution following the program.
An American college with a global table
Come to the United States. Bring your world with you.
International participants will be invited not as observers of an American profession, but as contributors to a global one. ACFP programs offer access to faculty, research, applied laboratories, professional networks, and exceptional American destinations. The exchange runs in both directions.
Students studying outside the United States are encouraged to register interest early. Future university partnerships, student delegations, and regional ambassadors will help identify promising candidates who might otherwise remain invisible.
Discuss a university partnership ↗A continuing path
There is a place to begin.
The Emerging Professionals program is an entrance into the same institution, not a separate children’s table.
While studying
Enter through student membership, the scholarship reading room, virtual briefings, campus relationships, and calls for student work.
At graduation
Build a professional development plan, connect with mentors, present work, and identify the knowledge and judgment your first role will demand.
First three years
Attend applied programs, maintain an education record, contribute to the College, and develop a professional reputation grounded in work rather than self-promotion.
Beyond emergence
Move into full professional membership, faculty contribution, committee service, leadership, and eventually distinctions that must be earned.
The founding cohort
Start before everything is established.
Founding interest is open to students, recent graduates, early career practitioners, university faculty, and institutional partners worldwide. Tell us where you are, what you are studying or building, and where you hope the profession will take you.