Michelle Mottola is a professor with a joint position in the School of Kinesiology, Faculty of Health Sciences and the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology in the Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry at the Western University. She is the director of the R. Samuel McLaughlin Foundation–Exercise and Pregnancy Laboratory; chair of the Maternal, Fetal & Newborn Health Division of the Children’s Health Research Institute; and a fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine and founding chair of the Pregnancy and Postpartum Special Interest Group. She was recently appointed as a Fellow of the Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology and the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences.

Professor Mottola is an anatomist (embryologist) and exercise physiologist who has conducted research on the effects of maternal exercise on both the mother and the developing fetus. She was co-lead author on the 2019 Canadian Guideline for Physical Activity throughout Pregnancy which was based on rigorous evaluation of the current scientific literature through 12 systematic reviews published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. She also helped develop the Get Active Questionnaire for Pregnancy and the companion document for Health Care Providers, released on April 15th, 2021. She was part of the expert panel for the 2025 Canadian Guideline for Physical Activity, Sedentary Behaviour, and Sleep throughout the First Year Postpartum. Her current research focuses on the impact of a healthy lifestyle during pregnancy and postpartum on chronic disease risks such as obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease for both mother and her offspring.