The School of Kinesiology is excited to announce it will be participating in the Vancouver Summer Program (VSP) for 2023.
VSP is an annual, four-week program that provides international students with the opportunity to discover what it’s like to live and learn in Canada and build friendships across the globe.
The School has a long history of participating in VSP prior to the pandemic. Since 2013, KIN has hosted over 400 students from various countries, including China, Japan, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Singapore and Taiwan.
This year, KIN will host 22 students from six countries who will participate in two academic courses: Sport and Exercise Psychology and Exercise Physiology. The courses will be taught by our Kinesiology instructors – Kay Anderson, Meagan Arbeau and Jack Zhan. Participating students will also get to take part in socio-cultural activities, including Dragon Boating, visiting the Richmond Oval, and attending a sporting event.
The 2023 program will run from July 15 to August 14, 2023.
Learn more about VSP and stay tuned for updates once the 2023 program begins!
After crossing the stage on May 25, 2023, UBC Kinesiology graduates were joined by faculty, staff, friends, and family to celebrate and recognize their outstanding achievements at the School’s reception, held at Sage Bistro.
The class of 2023 is the largest in KIN history, with 303 undergraduate students and 29 graduate students (MKin, MSc, PhD) receiving their diplomas. Ahmed Masood and Vanessa Meneghetti addressed the reception as the respective undergraduate and graduate class speakers.
The School also presented awards to the heads of each undergraduate BKin stream:
Christopher Hansen-Barkun – Head of Kinesiology and Health Science (KINH)
Christopher Hansen-Barkun – Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology (CSEP) Undergraduate Student Award
Julia Miller – Head of Physical and Health Education (PEDH)
Kara Moscovitz – Head of Multidisciplinary Science (MDSC)
Yekta Saremi – Head of Neuromechanical and Physiological Sciences (NPSC)
Gaganpreet Dhami – Head of Social and Behavioral Sciences (SBSC)
Keira Chan – Head of Interdisciplinary Studies (IDKN)
Keira Chan – R.W. Schutz Award (Head of Kinesiology Graduating Class)
We extend a huge congratulations to the class of 2023, and this year’s award winners! Check out photos from the day!
UBC Walking Club is looking for volunteers! The club is a passion project that started with seniors from the UBC community. Each week, the group gets together and walks for 1-1.5 hours. This is a great volunteer opportunity for individuals looking for in person experience working with a vulnerable population in an exercise capacity. We welcome volunteers of all experience levels who feel comfortable walking with our group. The program will run at the same time each week from May – September 2023. There is the option to continue on after September if you wish. The time will be set during office hours based on group availability.
Historical work on the foundations of movement systems is always interesting, but a significant acquisition by UBC Library Rare Books section two years ago opened up new opportunities for kinesiology historians to investigate aspects of body culture during Vienna’s interwar years. The library acquisition included a large and eclectic collection of photographs and documents (mostly in German) that had belonged to Hanne Wassermann, a Jewish gymnastic teacher who grew up during Vienna’s ‘golden autumn’. New developments in radium research, psychology, physiology and anatomy as well as gynecology led to a particular fascination for the body and the flourishing of a variety of functional gymnastic systems at that time.
UBC Kinesiology professor, Patricia Vertinsky, and graduate student, Aishwarya Ramachandran, have been tracing the development of Wassermann’s ‘gymnastic methode’, and her contributions to early developments in massage therapy and daily gymnastic systems, through a scattered collection of documents involving gestalt psychologists and celebrated physicians and scientists. Forced to flee Hitler in 1939, Wassermann eventually arrived in Vancouver in 1943 where she began to teach gymnastics and massage therapy to Vancouver’s Jewish elite. Her involvement in physical culture systems in Vancouver over the next several decades will be the focus of the next phase of research into the Wassermann collection.
Principle Investigator:
Peter Cripton and Jean-Sébastien Blouin Details:
Study purpose:
We aim to measure the 2D kinematics of recreational divers and quantified head, neck, and body postures over a range of dives (from shallow to deep dives) initiated from different initial heights relative to the water surface, gaining more understanding of injuries caused by diving head first into a body of water. Your goal during the study will be diving into water at different angles from different heights.
You may be eligible to participate if:
• Age 19 – 30
• Be capable of dive 50-60 times into water from up to 1m above
• Have no injury sustained in the previous three months that affects your ability to dive
• Have no history of neck pain or injury
• Have no neurological, balance, or musculoskeletal disorders
• Fully vaccinated against COVID-19
If you are interested in participating, feel free to reach out to Alex at alexllz@student.ubc.ca for more details and scheduling! Poster:
The School of Kinesiology held the 2022-23 Student Leadership Recognition and Awards Breakfast on March 24, 2023 at the Jack Poole Hall, Robert H. Lee Alumni Centre. Student Engagement Officer, Emily Speidel, and Indigenous Academic Advisor, Robert Busch, co-hosted the event, which included an address by the School’s Director, Robert Boushel.
The awards recognize the outstanding contributions Kinesiology students have made over the past academic year, and their dedication to going above and beyond in their roles. Recipients are recognized for their work in the following three categories:
Community Engagement Award: students who have dedicated significant time and energy to roles that positively contribute to the health and wellbeing of the respective individuals and communities that they engage with.
Student Experience Award: students who have dedicated significant time and energy to roles that contribute to a holistic Kinesiology undergraduate experience.
Qwasen Graduating Student Leadership Award: graduating student leaders who have demonstrated dedicated service and leadership by holding one or more roles serving the School of Kinesiology or the KUS for the majority of their years at UBC.
We would like to extend a huge congratulations to everyone! View full list of award recipients. Check out photos from the breakfast.
We are pleased to announce that Drs. Andrea Bundon and Rosalin Miles have each been named a recipient of the 2022-23 Community-University Engagement Support (CUES) Fund.
The 2022-23 CUES Fund has awarded over $745,000 to 31 community-university projects that will benefit communities and advance collaborative research, teaching, and learning.
Dr. Bundon’s project includes a collaboration with researchers at UBC, BCIT and SFU, who will partner with the British Columbia Mobility Opportunities Society to develop and further improve adapted exercise equipment for people with physical disabilities.
Dr. Miles’ project involves a partnership with UBC Indigenous Health and Physical Activity Program and the Vancouver School Board to co-create a culturally relevant toolkit that supports Indigenous learners in parent-teacher conversations.
Purpose: to compare the number of repetitions able to be completed at varying resistance exercise loads with and without limb blood flow occlusion and to assess the effect of sex and training status on local muscle endurance performance.
Design:
Visit 1 – informed consent, maximal strength testing, VO2 max test
Visit 2 – ultrasound scans of quadriceps and biceps, thigh muscle biopsy, exercise and occlusion familiarization
Visit 3, 4, 5, 6 – exercise interventions which involve maximum knee-extension and barbell preacher curl repetitions with and without limb blood flow occlusion
Inclusion criteria:
Able to understand and communicate in English
19-30 years
All “No” answers on the CSEP Get Active questionnaire or doctors’ approval to participate
Untrained participants: no structured resistance and/or endurance training over the past 12-months (i.e., greater than 2 hours per week of structured/periodized training)
Resistance trained participants: structured resistance training over the past 12-months (i.e., minimum 10 sets of lower and upper body resistance exercise per week)
Endurance trained participants: structured resistance training over the past 12-months (i.e., minimum 4 sessions per week of endurance exercise)
Exclusion Criteria:
Body mass index (BMI; weight in kilograms divided by the square of height in meters) lower than 18 or greater than 30
Current use of cigarettes or other nicotine devices
Any major uncontrolled cardiovascular, muscular, metabolic, and/or neurological disorders
Any medical condition impacting the ability to participate in maximal exercise
Type one or type two diabetes
Diagnosis of cancer or undergoing cancer treatment in the past 12 months
Taking blood-thinning medication or the presence of a bleeding disorder
Participated in structured resistance or aerobic training in the previous 6 months (moderate to vigorous, more than 2 hours per
week)
Drug therapy with any drugs that alter skeletal muscle metabolism (i.e., Metformin, Benzodiazepines)
Lowest calculated exercise testing load is below the lightest weight able to be provided by the lab gymnasium equipment
Contact:
If interested in participating, please contact the study coordinator Matthew Fliss (matthew.fliss@ubc.ca) for more information. You can also view the study’s PDF/Flyer.
Active Kids is always on the lookout for enthusiastic and open minded Kin students to become part of our volunteer team! For many, this is the first direct step to becoming one of our coaches. We offer a variety of programs including soccer, basketball, gymnastics, multisport, physical literacy, birthday parties, school groups, our adapted physical activity program, and our partner program with Dunbar Community Centre, Musqueam Band, and Wesbrook Community Centre.
Please review the job descriptions for each employment opportunity.
Active Kids is always on the lookout for coaches for all of our programs including soccer, basketball, gymnastics, multisport, physical literacy, birthday parties, school groups, our adapted physical activity program, our partner program with Musqueam Band, and more.
