Birgbrager, Alyssa

Birgbrager, Alyssa

Growing up in Ontario, Alyssa had never been to Vancouver, but she saw a picture of the UBC campus and was immediately drawn. Enticed by the ski hills and prospect of the Winter Olympics, Alyssa packed her bags and headed across the country. She found that UBC Kinesiology was truly the perfect fit for her. The faculty quickly became her small family within a broad community. She became involved in many facets of the school; some of her most defining moments came from involvement in Kin Games, UBC REC, Kin Frosh and Orientation, and Go Global exchange. These experiences presented unique challenges that forced her to adapt, engage in shared dynamic learning opportunities and fostered her desire for continuous growth. Alyssa learned the value of being comfortable being uncomfortable, which has been a major asset in her career today.

Alyssa graduated in 2013, unsure of her long term career aspirations.  She had developed a keen interest in anatomy, physiology and injury prevention, but was unsure how she could piece that together to fit her passions without getting stuck in a monotonous construct.  After two years of working a job she did not enjoy, while taking courses and volunteering, Alyssa decided to take a one year, advanced certificate in Athletic Therapy at Mount Royal University to see if this would be a viable career.  She had many doubts throughout the course of the program, but upon graduation sought out some opportunities for more hands-on learning, which sparked a passion for the profession.

Alyssa currently works as an Athletic Therapist at Bishops University in Quebec.  She is always excited to go to work; every day presents new challenges, fresh opportunities, and she is kept on her toes.  As a certified Athletic Therapist, Alyssa provides preventative prophylactic care and emergency response in the field setting and injury assessment and rehabilitation in the clinic setting.  She loves working at an academic institution, being able to collaborate with an integrated health team that focuses on holistic health, working as a sports scientist on research projects, and mentoring and supervising students doing athletic therapy placements.  For Alyssa, athletic therapy is a rewarding and impactful field of work.  She enjoys helping athletes that have gone through any form of injury, get back to competing at elite levels, doing what they love.  Her advice for current students is to take advantage of the vast opportunities presented to you; seek out new experiences, learn from your mistakes, ask questions and enjoy the process!

In Memoriam – Henrik Moberg Parker


The UBC School of Kinesiology has established an In Memoriam Fund in honour of Henrik Moberg Parker who sadly passed away much too young in February 2020. Henrik was an excellent student and world-class athlete who joined the UBC Varsity sailing team and planned to pursue a career in physiotherapy. Henrik exemplified the values of the School and demonstrated the characteristics of the kind of leader the School always hopes will emerge from its program. He was a clever, kind, and inclusive young man. He was a dedicated friend and an accomplished coach to others.

We invite you to add your memories and to make a donation in the name of Henrik Moberg Parker. Funds donated in memoriam enrich the university experience for current and future generations of Kinesiology students. Your gift will go towards supporting students studying Kinesiology, with final decisions on award descriptions and student eligibility being made in consultation with the Moberg Parker family.

Please click here to give in memory of Henrik Moberg Parker and help keep his passion alive through UBC.

 

June 19th Webinar – Nutritional Ketosis in Health and Performance

The Schools of Kinesiology (UBC Vancouver) and Health and Exercise Sciences (UBCO) are co-hosting a weekly webinar series featuring current faculty research topics. The series runs May through June. All are invited to attend these free academic presentations on Friday afternoons from 3:00pm-4:30pm PST.

Jonathan Little, UBC Okanagan
Associate Professor
School of Health and Exercise Sciences

Title: Nutritional Ketosis in Health and Performance

Description: Have you heard of the keto diet? Ketone supplements? Is there any scientific evidence that they really work?
In this seminar Dr. Little will highlight the latest evidence in the science of nutritional ketosis. Specifically, he will attempt to answer the following four questions:
1) Should everyone follow a ketogenic diet?
2) Should people with type 2 diabetes follow a ketogenic diet?
3) Do exogenous ketone supplements improve endurance performance? and
4) Can exogenous ketones improve cardiometabolic health?

Details:
Friday, June 19, 2020
3:00pm – 4:30pm
All Welcome – Free admission
Zoom link

Lai, Henry

Welcome graduating student, Henry P. H. Lai, MSc 2020 to the Kin Alumni community. Henry is a UBC Killam Graduate Teaching Assistant Award winner who worked under the supervision of Dr. Darren Warburton in the Cardiovascular Physiology and Rehabilitation lab. During his time as a graduate student, Henry worked on a UBC TLEF project to co-create and deliver a blended-learning course specializing in Indigenous Health and Wellness.

Building on these learning experiences, Henry worked with the Health and Fitness Society of BC to co-create knowledge translation resources that promote culturally safe messaging in physical activity participation. These resources were shared with the broader community and included organizing local walk/run events, facilitating community-based experiential learning placements for undergrads, and hosting the 6​th​ and 7​th​ annual National Indigenous Physical Activity and Wellness Conference with the lab. Henry’s passion for working with Indigenous communities to promote holistic health and wellness inspired him to take on a research project at the lab as part of his graduate thesis.

Henry’s thesis project had a broad impact. It involved the co-creation of a community-based and Indigenous-led healthy lifestyle intervention, a joint initiative with Lytton First Nation, UBC Indigenous Studies in Kinesiology, and Indigenous Physical Activity and Cultural Circle. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of a community-based and Indigenous-led approach to improve health-related physical fitness measures in Indigenous adults living in a rural and remote community. Unique to this study, participants used individualized exercise prescriptions in family-oriented walking activities and talked about healthy lifestyle behaviours in knowledge-sharing circles. Strengths-based research methodologies were used to ensure that all aspects of the project reflect the innate strengths, capabilities, and aspirations of the community. The findings show that a strengths-based approach is a meaningful and beneficial method to improve health-related physical fitness and lifestyle behaviours. These culturally safe and relevant research methodologies support traditional ways to be physically active and empower community leaders to be the key advocates of positive change within their own community.

Henry’s academic interests include clinical exercise rehabilitation, preventive medicine, and holistic health and wellness. Henry has a strong passion for teaching as well. One of his most memorable and rewarding moments as a Teaching Assistant was the opportunity to create and teach a new unit in a kinesiology course. Away from school, Henry enjoys a lot of his downtime sipping black coffee, trying different bannock recipes, kayaking in the quiet waters of Deep Cove, and tending to his makeshift gardens.

Publication:
Lai HPH, Miles RM, Bredin SSD, Kaufman KL, Chua CZY, Hare J, Norman ME, Rhodes RE, Oh P, Warburton DER. (2019). “With every step, we grow stronger”: The cardiometabolic benefits of an Indigenous-led and community-based healthy lifestyle intervention. Journal of Clinical Medicine, 8(4):422

Distinctions:
UBC Killam Graduate Teaching Assistant Award (2020)
National Collaborating Centres for Public Health Knowledge Translation Award (2020)
Canadian Association of Cardiovascular Prevention and Rehabilitation Abstract Award(2019)
Canadian Institutes of Health Research Indigenous Gender and Wellness Idea Fair and Learning Circle Travel Award (2019)
UBC Donald and Ellen Poulter Scholarship (2019)
UBC Faculty of Education Graduate Award (2017)
UBC Captain C. Y. Wu Kinesiology Scholarship (2016)
UBC William B. McNulty Kinesiology Scholarship (2016)
UBC Kinesiology Head of Class Award (2016)
UBC Trek Excellence Scholarship (2016)

MacLean, Heather

Heather MacLean, BKIN’15 demonstrates the outstanding and resilient characteristics of a Kin leader and alum. Heather is a former Olympic swimmer who now works in Toronto on the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic as a nurse.

We caught up with Heather who told us, “Growing up, sports played a large role in my home as my parents enrolled me into everything from dancing, gymnastics, soccer, hockey to swimming.” But at the age of 8, Heather started swimming competitively for the Etobicoke Swim club, and as she says “the rest is history!”

When asked what made Heather want to study Kinesiology, she says “I had always loved the human body and was an athlete, so KIN combined both of these two passions. My favourite classes, hands down were any anatomy and physiology. I also loved that many other varsity athletes were in KIN; it really built a community within the varsity program that created so much T-BIRD pride! I also did not know exactly what I wanted to do after my undergrad, but KIN was a great starting point to all the options I had in mind. Whether it was teaching, medicine, nursing, physio… I knew KIN would give me the foundations I needed.”

Outside of academics at UBC, Heather was a member of the UBC Thunderbird Swim Team and trained with the High Performance National Swim Center. Swimming has played a large part in her life and some of the many highlights she mentions are winning the U Sport Team Championship in 2012, and making the 2012 Olympic Team at Trials. “I had failed to qualify [for the Olympic team] a few days earlier in what would have been considered my better event. After that, there were truly a lot of emotions when it finally all came together as I punched myself a ticket for the Games.”

However, Heather’s swimming journey was never easy. “My swimming career involved many ups and downs. I struggled a lot with my mental health at times and lost my passion for the sport in 2010. I think my proudest moment was overcoming that hard time in my career and working my way back to qualify for the 2012 Olympics. It was more than just fulfilling a lifetime goal, but rather, it showed how far I had come and the hurdles I had to jump to get there.” says Heather.

When speaking about her nursing career Heather says “I truly feel so lucky to be a nurse, and I can confidently say I love my job. Nursing gives you the opportunity to positively affect someone’s life when they are going through an anxiety-provoking experience. I love that I can be the person they rely on, trust and be their advocate.”

 

Best Career Advice Heather has Received: “Always be open to learning new things. Take any opportunities you can get. Then use these opportunities as a chance to develop yourself.”

Tips for Success: “Be true to yourself, work hard, but most importantly have fun. Through swimming and nursing I have learned you really can never succeed unless you’re having fun and love what you are doing!”

Congratulations Mahabhir Kandola!

Jun. 10, 2020 – Congratulations to Pop-PA Lab member Mahabhir Kandola for completing his proposal defence!

June 12th Webinar – Disability sport research as advocacy work

The Schools of Kinesiology (UBC Vancouver) and Health and Exercise Sciences (UBCO) are co-hosting a weekly webinar series featuring current faculty research topics. The series runs May through June. All are invited to attend these free academic presentations on Friday afternoons from 3:00pm-4:30pm PST.

Andrea Bundon, UBC Vancouver
Assistant Professor
School of Kinesiology

Title: Disability sport research as advocacy work

Description: There is an abundance of compelling scientific evidence that sport and physical activity can lead to a wealth of health and social benefits for people with disabilities. Being physically active can reduce the risk of secondary impairments and complications by enhancing cardiovascular function, musculoskeletal function, mobility, emotional well-being and quality of life and by lessening the impacts of depression, pain and fatigue. Yet despite decades of research, countless policies on inclusion, and millions of dollars spent on ‘creating opportunities’, few people with disabilities regularly participate in sport. I contend that the current situation is the result of a sport culture that is generally unprepared to engage with the politics of disability.

In this talk, I will present findings from three research projects – one on the role of wheelchair basketball in developing para-sport internationally, one on how ‘inclusion’ has been delivered within the British Columbia sport sector, and one exploring the precarious position of women in the Paralympic Games. I will use this research to illustrate how initiatives intended to promote sport opportunities for people with disabilities can still end up reproducing inequity and I will discuss examples of ‘promising practices’ that have the potential to lead to real change. My intent in sharing this work is to demonstrate that researchers need not be unbiased. Rather by working from a Critical Disabilities Studies paradigm, my research becomes my way of advocating for more equitable and inclusive sport.

Details:
Friday, June 12, 2020
3:00pm – 4:30pm
All Welcome – Free admission
Zoom link

Nothing About Us Without Us: Indigenous Engagement, Wellbeing and Campus Recreation


Neither a global pandemic nor final exams could stop a group of ambitious Kinesiology undergraduate students from sharing an important message!

On April 22nd, students from KIN 489C Indigenous Studies in Kinesiology gave a Zoom presentation entitled “Nothing About Us Without Us”: Indigenous Engagement, Wellbeing and Campus Recreation. The presentation was the outcome of a class research project from the fall 2019. For this project, students completed an environmental scan of policies and programs related to Indigenous recreation and wellbeing at UBC, and interviewed Indigenous staff and faculty for their perspectives on fostering Indigenous campus engagement.

The presentation was intended as a knowledge mobilization initiative, with thirty-eight students, staff, faculty and leaders from UBC-V and UBC-O Recreation, Wellness, NITEP and the Faculty of Education in attendance.

Click here to view the webinar.
 

Zoom Picture of Participants:
Top left to right: Marne McArdle, Moss Norman, Lauren Quigley
Middle left to right: Emma Reiter, Sumayya Dean, Gemma Tomasky
Bottom: Maddi Chow
Not present: Bret Watts, Jasmine Sindhar

Seeking Participants: Seniors COvid-19 Pandemic and Exercise(SCOPE) Study

Seniors COvid-19 Pandemic and Exercise (SCOPE) study is seeking adults aged 65 years and older for a 12-week program to increase your levels of physical activity while at home.

Our goal is to assess whether exercising with other older adults as part of a socially connected (but physically distanced) exercise program, or a personal exercise program, will significantly improve the well-being and health of older adults (aged 65 years or older) currently living in Canada during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The trial is being conducted by Dr. Mark Beauchamp (director of the Psychology of Exercise, Health, and Physical Activity Lab at the University of British Columbia) and colleagues. The study is funded by a bridge grant from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

For more information go to scopetrial2020.ca or contact kin.scope@ubc.ca

Download the flyer: Click Here

June 11 – Dialogue on Aging Virtual Series Session#2

Eli Puterman, PhD
Associate Professor,
Canada Research Chair in Physical Activity and Health
Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research Scholar
Faculty of Education, School of Kinesiology
University of British Columbia, Vancouver

1PM:
Come early to participate in virtual interactive exhibits from the comfort of your own home. Bring your own beverage. Participants will have chances to ask questions and win a prize. The exhibitor mini presentation schedule will follow.

2PM:
Canada Research Chair, Dr. Eli Puterman will:

  • Discuss how physical activity improves health, wellbeing, and mood on a daily basis in highly stressed adults.
  • Provide tips and resources for seniors at home to become more physically active on their own, without risking their health during this pandemic.
  • Discuss his latest research that supported family caregivers to become more physically active and what lessons can be applied for all older adults during the current COVID-19 pandemic

Registration:
Please register now: Click Here

Presentation Poster:
Click Here