Iain Gowans is a Doctoral Researcher at the Peter Harrison Centre at Loughborough University. He is also a Paralympic swimmer having represented Great Britain at the 1996 wAtlanta Games.

He graduated from the University of Strathclyde in Sport in the Community and completed his master’s degree in Equality Studies at University College Dublin in 2003. Between 2003-2021, Iain worked for the British Paralympic Association (BPA).

He started his PhD in 2021 and it looks at "Intentional Misrepresentation in Paralympic Athlete Classification", which he got inspiration to do from his own experiences as well as his work with the BPA. In addition to his research, Iain has developed  educational materials for athletes and staff on Classification, which has been reproduced and translated around the world.