KIN graduates May 2019

KIN graduates May 2019

On Thursday, May 23rd, 272 Kinesiology undergraduate students crossed the stage at Chan Center. The graduates came to UBC from all over the world. 233 are from British Columbia; and internationally we have students from the United States, China, Malaysia, the Philippines, Japan, Singapore, Kenya, South Africa, Australia, and France. 18 students graduated with co-op distinction. 10 Kinesiology varsity student-athletes graduated. And 14 KIN graduate students graduated this year.

Sara Hodson BHK 2002, founder and president of LIVE WELL Exercise Clinic, who has been named as one of BIV’s top 40 under 40 list for 2018 gave some advice to the recent graduates.

“Today if anything just remember the word reach. Reach forward and reach high and I have no doubt that you will achieve that. Also, stay grounded, reach down and be present. Accept the moment that we are in. You have so many years ahead of you, stay grounded and be in the present moment. More importantly I want to talk about reaching forward. Reaching forward is continuing to push and strive ahead. Continuing to think of the other people who graduated on the stage with you today. How can you move forward with them? How can you move shoulder to shoulder and support each other as you continue into your professional lives? There are careers and opportunities that do not even exist today, the and people in this room will go on and achieve them.  So, continue to reach forward and push yourself to be the absolute best that you can be. Probably, the most important: reach back. Being super balanced as a human that is a professional means that you have one hand reaching forward holding on to the future and the professional opportunities that you have, and the other hand has to be reaching backwards or you will fall. And reaching back means giving back. Does not mean with money I know you are all freaking out you have student loans and all these different things but it means your time, it means your passion, it means your effort, it means contributing. Reach back by identifying how you can still continue to contribute to the school how you can continue to inspire the people who are maybe two years behind you. How can you reach back and inspire the future graduates? You are the closest example to them that they will have. I’m old compare to you guys, maybe what I have to say isn’t as timely, but what you have to say and your opportunity to reach back will not only inspire the future generations but it would motivate and empower you to be a better human and a better professional, and a more grounded person. And so today if anything just remember the word reach. Reach high, stay grounded, reach forward and reach back.”

Check out all the great things that ICORD is up to!

In 2016, Swedish exercise experts Dr. Anna Bjerkefors and Mats-Erik Bjerkefors came to Vancouver on a BICP-funded international travel award to collaborate with Dr. Tania Lam and her team in ICORD’s Yuel Family Physical Activity Research Centre (PARC) to develop workshops to train fitness leaders how to work with people with SCI. The PARC team successfully ran two pilot workshops in the summer of 2016: one for SCI peers and PARC students, and another for community trainers. They received great feedback as well as lots of requests for future training opportunities. Around the same time, the PARC team also launched an initiative to explore the feasibility and benefits of group exercise programs (spin classes, boxercise training, circuit training) for people with SCI. Last year, PARC staff began collaborating with the Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation, and the City of Surrey Parks, Recreation & Culture to provide training for their community fitness leaders on how to work with individuals with disabilities.

A staff inservice for nearly 40 Vancouver Community Centre trainers at ICORD in March 2018 was a huge success, and the pilot data that was collected showed a significant increase in the trainers’ knowledge and confidence. Using data from the workshops with the Swedes and this inservice, Dr. Lam and her team successfully applied for a Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research Grant of $10,000to continue working with Vancouver and Surrey to train their trainers and assist in updating their facilities to be more inclusive.

Building on their experience offering adaptive spin classes at ICORD, the PARC team helped establish an inclusive spin program at Vancouver’s Champlain Community Centre and provided training to the instructor. The class offers the use of arm-cycles in addition to classic stationary bikes. Some PARC participants have started attending the weekly Champlain classes and have said they are awesome! Over the coming summer, the PARC team plans to continue to work with Surrey and Vancouver on inclusive fitness initiatives. They will be helping Vancouver to create more inclusive circuit training classes, and providing fitness leaders in Surrey with weight room experience and practical skills around inclusive equipment, and they’ve also started discussions with the Cities of Burnaby and Coquitlam to begin partnerships with their community centres as well!

New Paper Out

May 28, 2019 – New paper out by Dr. Erica Lau, PhD candidate Negin Riazi, and Dr. Guy Faulkner examining the longitudinal association of team sports participation and health-related behaviours in Canadian adolescent girls. Read it here!

Kinesiology PhD student Nikolaus Dean explores the attitudes toward concussion among surfers on BC’s coast

Canada’s west coast surf culture downplays concussion risk

Nikolaus Dean suffered a debilitating concussion playing varsity lacrosse during his first year of university. His post-concussion symptoms persisted for a year before doctors cleared him to return to the sport he loved. After his first practice back, he decided the risk wasn’t worth it and walked away.

Since then, the UBC kinesiology PhD student has taken up surfing and academic research. For his master’s thesis, he explored attitudes toward concussion among surfers on B.C.’s west coast, where the Surf Canada Nationals and Olympic trials were held on May 10-15 in Tofino.

We asked Dean what he learned by interviewing 12 members of Canada’s west coast surfing community.

Why did you decide to look into surfers’ attitudes toward concussion?

Most concussion research has focused on team sports, contact sports and more traditional sports. Nobody has really looked at non-contact sports, individual sports and more alternative sports, despite the fact that there are epidemiology studies suggesting that concussion is occurring at high rates.

How high are concussion rates among surfers?

I found that head injuries are the second most common injury in surfing after lacerations. Studies suggest that surf-related concussion accounts for three to 37 per cent of those head injuries. But concussion is so hard to quantify and get accurate numbers on. A person may have had a concussion without knowing it, and may not have reported it to the study, so those numbers are guidelines. What they do suggest is that concussions are occurring in surfing at a rate on par with mainstream sports.

What attitudes did the surfers in your study have toward concussion?

Generally, they showed irreverent attitudes toward the injury. They would often downplay or trivialize the severity of it. It shows that they’re willing to accept the risks of playing injured, and to push through concussive injuries. This has been shown before in more traditional sporting contexts, but now it’s also being displayed in individual, non-contact, non-traditional contexts. It’s really interesting when you think about that, because surfers don’t have teammates or coaches who may be pressuring them to play through injuries. Those external factors were absent.

Then why do they do it?

There were three main factors. The first was time. Maybe they had a limited time within a surf area. For example, if they had travelled to get to a remote spot, they would be more inclined to surf through a concussion. Or if the injury happened on the first wave of the day, they would be more likely to stay out and surf through it.

The second factor was having others present in the water. Although they don’t have teammates, coaches or trainers, a number of surfers said they’d be more willing to push through a concussion if they were out surfing with friends.

And the last factor, which I thought was one of the most interesting, was wave conditions. A number of them said that was the No. 1 reason they would continue to surf through a concussion. It was quite telling that wave conditions would dictate that.

Why don’t surfers know more about concussion?

There’s little information for surfers right now. There are no surf-oriented return-to-play protocols. There are no concussion waivers—something a surf rental shop gives out that tells you the symptoms and what to look for in a concussion, then you sign it and hold yourself responsible for pulling yourself out to appropriately deal with a concussion. We are seeing those things in other alternative sports like snowboarding, but surfing doesn’t have that.

Is the situation improving?

I think this topic will only grow due to the mainstreaming of the sport, with it moving into the Olympics and becoming an international sport. I hope more attention is given to it in the future, and people take it a little more seriously.

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* Since we posted this article, the topic of surfer concussions has gained some public attention. The Globe and Mail published an article on August 25, 2019 titled, Surfers off Canada’s West Coast face significant risks of concussions. UBC researcher, Nikolaus Dean is quoted in the article.

Marilyn Pomfret (1932 – 2019), Professor Emerita

It is with great sadness the School has learned that Emerita, Marilyn Pomfret passed away April 24, 2019 at Vancouver General Hospital. Marilyn was an important member in the School’s community and will be profoundly missed.

Marilyn was one of the most celebrated of the School of Kinesiology’s alumni, having graduated with a Bachelor’s in Physical Education in 1954. She was inducted into the British Columbia Sports Hall of Fame, UBC Sports Hall of Fame, named a YWCA Woman of Distinction and was a recipient of a UBC Alumni Association Achievement Award, in the Faculty Community Service category.

Marilyn taught high school, primarily in West Vancouver, for nine years. She then returned to UBC in 1963 to teach in the Department of Physical Education, at the same time taking on the position of Head Coach of UBC’s Women’s volleyball team. During her eleven years as coach she guided her team to three Western Canadian championships and two CIS titles, including UBC’s first in Women’s Volleyball.

While teaching and coaching at UBC, Marilyn assumed the role of UBC’s Women’s Athletic Director, where she became acknowledged as a true “Builder” in the sport community. Her dedication to the principals of equality and co-operation secured increased funding, athletic opportunities, and participation for female athletes. Marilyn established the Canadian Women’s Intercollegiate Athletic Union in 1974, which she then helped to amalgamate with the Canadian Intercollegiate Athletic Union (now Canadian Interuniversity Sport) in 1980.

On the Board of Directors of both Canada West and CIS Athletic Associations, Marilyn, in 1986, was awarded the Austin-Matthews Award for outstanding contribution to the development of university sport in Canada. UBC’s most prestigious female athletic award, given to the year’s outstanding female athlete, was in 1984 re-named in Marilyn Pomfret’s honour. Marilyn was recently featured as one of Education’s 100 as part of the UBC Faculty of Education’s Year of Alumni celebrations.

Marilyn will be remembered for her dedication to her community, as well as to women’s sports, which opened many doors of opportunity for female athletes not only at UBC, but across Canada. Our deepest condolences to her husband Jack, and family, whom she leaves behind.

Details for her Celebration of Life will be provided once confirmed.

 

Ramsden, Rachel

Rachel Ramsden graduated from the School of Kinesiology in 2013. While originally attracted to the program with an interest in sport and physical activity, Rachel’s interests evolved to focus on community-level policy and programming that support healthy communities. Rachel decided to pursue her newfound interest in community programming, and continued her education with a Master’s degree in Public Health at the School of Population and Public Health at UBC, graduating in 2015.

While completing her Master’s degree, Rachel grew more and more involved in the public health field, particularly where it aims to help children and youth. She began working with the BC Injury Research and Prevention Unit at the BC Children’s Hospital Research Institute — her research involved analyzing injury data within BC’s local health authorities, focusing on concussions among children and youth. Rachel was also a member of the CIHR Team in Child & Youth Injury Prevention and worked on updating the Injury Data Online Tool (iDOT), an online injury data platform for injury prevention practitioners and professionals, as well as the public.

Rachel continues to be passionate about helping and protecting the youth in our communities. Since 2016, she continues to research injury data with the BC Injury Research and Prevention Unit, and is now the Child Care Planner at the City of Richmond. Her role in Richmond includes facilitating best practice design and safety features into indoor and outdoor municipal early child development settings, as well as providing policy and programming for early child development and child health in the community.

This fall, Rachel will return to UBC to pursue a PhD in the School of Population and Public Health. Studying under the supervision of Dr. Mariana Brussoni and Dr. Ian Pike, she intends to map the patterns of children in outdoor environments, focusing on the physical movements that occur when children partake in unstructured play. Her research will aim to understand common outdoor environment components and evaluate their safety, play and physical activity worth.

The School of Kinesiology allowed Rachel to experience an interdisciplinary approach to health, physical activity and child development, creating an optimal setting to discover a unique employment and research path. As a previous member of the UBC Varsity Women’s Soccer team, sport still remains an important part of Rachel’s life. She now coaches soccer in her local community and hopes that through her research, employment and community work, she can make an impact on supporting physical activity opportunities for children.

 

 

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Congratulations Krista Glowacki!

May 7, 2019 – Congratulations to Pop-PA Lab member Krista Glowacki on her advancement to candidacy!

New Paper Out

May 2, 2019 – New paper out by Matthew Fagan, Mark Duncan, Dr. Lira Yun and Dr. Guy Faulkner titled Moving away from depression: Physical activity changes in patients undergoing r-TMS for major depressive disorder

School of Kinesiology banner wins platinum Hermes Creative Award

The School of Kinesiology and UBC Studios are proud to announce that the new KIN banner installed received a platinum Hermes Creative Award in the category of Print Media – Outdoor Advertising on May 1, 2019.

The Hermes Creative Awards are administered and judged by the Association of Marketing and Communications Professionals, which has been ongoing since 1994.

The banner features Scarlett Sparrow-Felix, a young athlete from the Musqueam community. It celebrates the heritage of the School of Kinesiology, and the Department of Athletics and Recreation housed within the War Memorial Gym. It is an acknowledgment that UBC stands on ancestral and unceded territory of the Musqueam people, and Scarlett’s family history. The banner symbolizes the future and the recognition of history, people, and place, and the important role the School of Kinesiology, and Athletics and Recreation play in the evolution of the university.

More information can be found here: https://hermesawards.com/

The School would like to thank UBC Studios for their design support throughout the project and UBC photographer Paul Joseph, as well as Scarlett Sparrow-Felix for her enthusiastic participation, Elder Gail Sparrow for her support and blessing, Rosalin Miles for her engagement with the Musqueam community, Kavie Toor for his collaboration on the banner project, and President Ono for his generous support of the project.

Lam, Joyce

Joyce Lam, BKin 2017, discovered her passion for neuroscience in her undergraduate years at the School of Kinesiology, where her involvement in on-campus labs as a student broadened her knowledge and experience within the field of research.

In 2015, Joyce began working as a Work Learn student in the Frontotemporal Dementia Research Program at UBC Hospital. This experience served as a jumpstart into her career in academic research – not only did she gain valuable insight into working and conducting research in a clinical setting, but she learned much about neurodegenerative diseases, and was able to expand her network in the field of neurology. In 2016, Joyce continued on her path in neurology and went on to volunteer as a research assistant in Dr. Doris Doudet’s laboratory, at UBC Hospital’s Brain Research Centre. This position eventually led her to pursue her Master of Science in Neuroscience under the supervision of Dr. Doudet, of which she is now in her final year. Her Master’s project aims to assess and to further characterize a novel progressive preclinical model of Parkinson’s disease.

Joyce was also a recipient of the 2017 Faculty of Medicine Summer Student Research Program Award. Working with Dr. Ian Scott and Dr. Kevin Eva at the Centre of Health Education Scholarship, she helped develop and carry out an experiment that investigated the effects of test-enhanced learning in first-year Medical students.

Outside academics, Joyce has been highly involved in her community. She is a part of the Vancouver Investors Group Wealth Management Walk for Alzheimer’s planning committee since 2017. She is also a regular volunteer at several local organizations and serves on numerous committees at UBC, including the President’s UBC Vancouver Non-Academic Misconduct Committee. Because of her long and varied record of volunteering and community service, she is one of three students across all years and programs selected to receive the 2019 Edward JC Hossie Leadership Award. It is UBC’s highest award given annually to three students who have demonstrated exceptional leadership through volunteerism, community service and/or campus activities.

Joyce is extremely passionate about neuroscience, particularly when it intersects with the study of neurodegenerative diseases. After defending her Master’s thesis in August 2019,  she continues her academic journey at UBC to pursue a PhD in Neuroscience, with a research focus on identifying gut microbial shifts in Parkinson’s disease. She aims to apply to medical programs after obtaining her PhD. Joyce’s ultimate professional goal is to combine her academic, clinical and volunteer experiences and become a physician-scientist in the field of neurodegeneration.

Joyce’s Advice: “The journey to graduation is not always smooth and predictable. It is perfectly fine to take some time off or change your academic path no matter how far along you are in your studies.”

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