Dr. Alison Feeney is in her second season as the head coach of the Shippensburg University women’s tennis team in 2021-22.
In an abbreviated 2020-21 season, Feeney directed the Raiders through the adversity of the pandemic by instructing the team through fall and winter practices. During a shortened conference schedule of just five matches, Feeney achieved her first collegiate victory as a head coach on April 17, 2021 with a 5-2 win at Lock Haven.
Feeney was hired as the head women's tennis coach at Shippensburg University on Aug. 28, 2020. She served as the team’s faculty-athletic mentor (FAM) during the 2019-20 season after serving as one of two FAMs for the football team in the 2018 season.
As an active adult-league competitor, Feeney is rated at 4.5 per the National Tennis Rating Program (NTRP) maintained by the United States Tennis Association (USTA). Feeney is a regular singles player in a summer women’s league and a regular mixed doubles player in winter leagues. She has competed in postseason regional and district tournament competition spanning multiple states.
Feeney is in her third year as a full professor and her 23rd year overall as a professor of geography and earth science at Shippensburg University. She teaches general education courses in the department (World Geography and the Geography of the United States and Canada) and, as a mapping specialist, regularly instructs courses in geographic information systems and cartography.
Her faculty research is centered in the area of geographic, historic, cultural heritage and economic impacts of craft beverages. As a specialist in brew science, Feeney secured a $70,000 Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board (PLCB) grant to develop a brewing science program in the PASSHE system and to develop educational short courses and professional training opportunities designed to enhance the Pennsylvania beer industry. She also secured a $15,000 grant that will analyze the potential impacts of the hard cider industry for agritourism in Pennsylvania.
In 2018, Feeney published the book “For the Love of Beer: Pennsylvania Breweries,” a work that examines Pennsylvania's brewing history, geography and cultural richness.
Feeney graduated from UConn in 1992 as a double-major in history in geography. She later earned a master’s degree in geography from Portland State in 1995 before receiving her PhD in geography from Michigan State in 2001.
