Congratulations to Dr. Tania Lam and her team of co-applicants who have been awarded a CIHR grant for their project, “The PELvUS Study – Pelvic Floor Exercise to Lessen Urinary Incontinence and Sexual Disfunction in People with Spinal Cord Injury“.
The $569,924 grant will help Dr. Lam and her team explore how to prescribe pelvic floor muscle exercises to people with spinal cord injury (SCI), and understand what effect this type of training could have on bladder and sexual health. It is hoped that the results from this project will open new areas of research for using exercise-based strategies to improve bladder and sexual health, and overall quality of life in people with SCI.
Dr. Lam’s team includes co-applicants, Drs. Andrea Bundon (UBC KIN), Andre Krassioukov (UBC), and Matthias Walter (University of Basel).
See Research Gate for a list of current publications.
Research and Teaching
Through her research, Dr. Yoon aims to address the intersections of social inequities, climate change, and health. Using primarily qualitative methods, she pursues inter- and trans-disciplinary research, with a focus on community engagement and participatory approaches. Underlying her research is thinking about bodies in sociopolitical contexts in order to understand how some bodies are considered more ‘dispensable’, and thus, rendered more vulnerable to climate-related harms and environmental pollution.
Dr. Yoon also maintains an active interest in critical physical cultural studies with a focus on race (among other various axes of social inequities), communication, popular culture, and social justice outcomes.
Through her teaching, Dr. Yoon seeks to provoke thinking about how various kinesiology course concepts can help understand and situate the body in social, political, cultural, and historical contexts – by ‘connecting the dots’ in one’s immediate surroundings as well as broader social issues. She seeks to foster an environment in which students’ diverse range of experiences and backgrounds come to matter, and thereby facilitate making the course concepts personally relevant.
Dr. McEwan’s research focuses on sport and performance psychology, with a particular interest in teamwork and group dynamics. Utilizing a variety of quantitative and qualitative research methods, the overarching aim of his work is to understand how individual and collective thriving can be optimized in sport and other high-performance settings, such as healthcare, military, and business contexts.
Potential Students
Students interested in pursuing a graduate degree or post-doctoral fellowship are encouraged to contact me directly at the email address listed above.
This February, explore ways to fit physical activity into your day during Move UBC month! Small changes can add up to big impacts—moving more can help improve mental health and resilience, boost your creativity and productivity, improve your sleep, and even help our planet.
Check out highlights for the month below or see a full list of activities in the Move UBC calendar.
Walk For Joy
Walk for Joy is open to all UBC students, staff, faculty, and community members and is designed to reduce sedentary time. Over 9 weeks, participants will accumulate points based on how much they walk, roll or take part in physical activity in teams of five or as individuals.
Awards and prizes will be presented to the team with the most steps walked, best team name and best team photo.
This year’s charitable partner is Abreast in a Boat, and participants are encouraged to make a donation to the organization in lieu of registration feed.
Jan 23, 2023 – New paper out the prospective association between physical activity and initiation of current substance use among adolescents. Read it here!
Walk for Joy is back for 2023! The challenge is is designed to get people moving and reduce sedentary time, and is open to all UBC students, staff, faculty, and community members. Over 9 weeks, participants will accumulate points based on how much they walk, roll or take part in physical activity in teams of five or as individuals.
Awards and prizes will be presented to the team with the most steps walked, best team name and best team photo. The top team will have their name engraved on a plaque.
This year’s charitable partner is Abreast in a Boat. In lieu of registration fees, participants are encouraged to make a donation to the organization.
Details
When: January 30 – April 2, 2023. An opening ceremony will take place on Wednesday, January 25 in the Ponderosa Ballroom.
Together for us: Utilizing Social Identity Theory to enhance youth mental health in sport
Thursday, March 9 | 12:30 – 1:30 PM
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Canadian adolescents experienced a loss of social connection with peers and reported a two-fold increase in mental health issues. As youth begin to re-engage in sport, there is an opportunity to promote mental health. A key facet to consider is the identity youth associate with their sport team (i.e. social identities).
This talk will overview the ongoing research in the Groups For Youth Development (G4YD) lab to understand and harness social identity in youth sport teams at a competitive and recreational level. Specifically, it will share findings from the Together For Us (T4Us) intervention designed to enhance mental health in youth competitive sport teams.
Dr. Mark Bruner (Ph.D.) is a Canada Research Chair in Youth Development through Sport and Physical Activity and a Professor in the School of Physical and Health Education at Nipissing University.
Location: Life Sciences Centre (LSC), Room 1002, 2350 Health Sciences Mall, Vancouver, BC V6T1Z3
Fasting is amazing for mice, but is it good for you?
Thursday, January 26 | 12:30-1:30 PM
Intermittent fasting is emerging as a dietary strategy to induce weight loss and improve cardiometabolic health. In mice, prolonged fasting induces beneficial adaptations in skeletal muscle and in whole body health that mimic the benefits of regular exercise. However, in humans it is less clear whether fasting per se is beneficial or if fasting is simply a simple means of restricting calories. This talk will explore the evidence supporting/refuting the benefits of fasting as a means of improving health in humans with a focus on skeletal muscle metabolism and function.
**No Zoom or recording**
Location: Life Sciences Centre (LSC), Room 1002, 2350 Health Sciences Mall, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z3
In celebration of Move UBC, join us Thursday, February 23 for a Research Roundtable! This event seeks to bring together diverse perspectives to discuss anti-racism and lateral allyship (support across BIPOC identities) in physical activity and sport in Canada. The event will be composed of two parts, a virtual webinar from 9-11am and an in-person working session from 11-12:30pm.
Panelists include:
Dr. Janice Forsyth, Professor in the Faculty of Education, School of Kinesiology, University of British Columbia
Dr. Courtney Szto, Assistant Professor in the School of Kinesiology and Health Studies, Queen’s University
Dr. May Farrales, Assistant Professor in the Departments of Geography and Gender, Sexuality & Women’s Studies, Simon Fraser University
Shalom Brown, second-year Master’s student in Kinesiology, University of Toronto
Alyssa Reyes, first-year PhD student, Simon Fraser University
