photo of Josep Solà-Niubó

Josep is researching the social history of sports following a Ph.D. program at Universitat Ramon Llull-Universitat Blanquerna (Barcelona). He is particularly interested in basketball, its impact on society, and how values and ethics have shaped the game from its invention in a YMCA gymnasium in Springfield, Massachusetts.

School, basketball courts, and the music conservatory were places where he spent most of his youth before entering the Faculty of Computer Science in Barcelona. Much later, after abandoning the comfort zone of a steady job as a software developer, his life switched to the study of cultures, history, and human activities, be it on the field or at the desk. He completed a BA-Hons in Musicology (Ethnomusicology) in South Africa, an experience that included ethnographic work with a group of basketball players who were students of Rhodes University whom Josep happily coached.