In Memoriam - Laura Robertson

In Memoriam – Laura Robertson

Below we share an in memoriam piece submitted to us by Sarah Richter, a friend and fellow student of Laura Robertson, KIN graduate, who passed away on July 30, 2018.

Laura Robertson was a School of Kinesiology alumnus, who graduated in May 2017. She was known for her sense of adventure, compassion for helping others, willingness to try to new things, and her quiet, yet funny personality.

Prior to her years studying Kinesiology, she was first enrolled in the Faculty of Arts in 2011 at UBC, and even had time to adventure to the University of Melbourne for a Go Global semester in the latter half of her third year.

Laura was able to pursue her true passion by joining the School of Kinesiology. She worked part-time at Body Works as a Personal Trainer from 2015-2016; her client interactions were always positive and meaningful. Although her career aspirations lay in Kinesiology, she was able to find a home in other activities at UBC. Laura competed for the UBC Logger Sports Thunderjacks team, competing in BC, Alberta, and throughout the United States. Her events included axe throwing, double buck, stock saw, and the underhand chop. She was also selected as a club representative for SISU Girls of UBC in its inaugural year. The club’s focus was on providing outdoor adventure opportunities to UBC students, inclusive of all abilities, genders, and ages. The international organization focused on engagement with young females, but this UBC club broke boundaries in providing opportunities that other clubs lacked. Through SISU Girls of UBC, Laura showcased her adventurous and brave self on hikes, wilderness scavenger hunts, beach clean-ups, and water sports. Other involvements included being an Assistant Director for UBC REC’s Ice Hockey League, being an Orientation Leader for the School of Kinesiology, and following that up with her role as a Squad Leader. UBC Orientations allowed her to connect with student leaders in other programs, while continuing to plan an incredible welcome-to-UBC for new Kinesiology students.

Within her busy schedule of involvements, Laura found more time to work. In 2015, she worked with Groundwork Athletics Inc., Vancouver. Here, she continued to work in a personal training capacity, while organizing fundraisers for after school programs and communicating in an interdisciplinary setting.

During Laura’s summers at home in the Niagara Region, she volunteered her time in horseback riding with clients with special needs at Red Roof Retreat. Following graduation in 2017, she was promoted to an instructor role. Laura also decided to work outside the field of Kinesiology, and spent the year in a customer service environment at a local craft brewery. As Laura continued to grow in her field, she most recently was hired in to a role in the Brock University Department of Athletics & Recreation. The Robertson parents were known for their support to Brock University, and Laura continued their legacy by working for the school.

Laura passed away on July 30, 2018, with both of her parents, as her family was flying from their cottage in Pembroke, ON to P.E.I. for a vacation. The family has been well recognized in this time for the support and love for the Niagara community, but Laura Robertson will still be well-remembered on the west coast. She leaves behind two brothers, who will continue the family’s legacy and supportive image.

For students who find they are in need of counselling support, please contact UBC’s counselling services to be given priority treatment. 

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New Paper Out

Aug. 27, 2018 – New paper out by Dr. Guy Faulkner and colleagues examining whether a Canadian children’s television show (The Moblees) can get children moving more. The study examined: 1) whether children were more physically active when watching a Moblees episode, and 2) explored parental perceptions of the show. To learn more: Can The Moblees™ Move Canadian Children? Investigating the Impact of a Television Program on Children’s Physical Activity

Kinesiology staff receive two 2018 President’s Awards

We are pleased to announce that two of our staff members have received 2018 President’s Awards: Kathy Manson, Executive Coordinator and Program Administrator, received the wellbeing award, and Dylan Brown, Program Director, UBC Active Kids, received a community engagement award.

Kathy approaches all aspects of her position with empathy and compassion. Whether advocating for the voices of women researchers, instructors, and junior academics to support them in being heard, or providing encouragement to international students who are working through immigration paperwork, Kathy’s collaborative approach creates a welcoming environment and inspires others.

Kathy integrates physical activity into her daily life, and also participates in the School’s community-based activities. She invites all students, faculty, and staff to join, regardless of their skill or fitness levels.

Kathy has led several well being initiatives for staff and faculty, including ‘KINnections’, a series of social gatherings that enable faculty and graduate students to connect from eight sites and build community.

Dylan is a role model within the School as well, for his unparalleled level of commitment to improving general health and physical literacy. He has elevated a number of outreach programs to engage with new communities, focusing on increasing quality of life, health, and wellbeing through physical activity participation and social connection, in particular for children and youth. As just one example, in 2015, Dylan partnered with the Musqueam Band to develop a physical literacy program for parents and their young children, and again in 2018, he sought and was granted a grant for further developing the programming with the Musqueam Band. He has also brought the successful gymnastics program Active Kids to new communities in Vancouver, helping families find affordable ways to spend quality time together.

Dylan’s efforts have had a positive impact on the communities themselves, but also on the UBC student community, who have been able to partake in hundreds of experiential learning opportunities. Dylan ensures that the faculty, staff, and students in Kinesiology have the opportunity to engage, support, and be involved in community events at UBC and across Vancouver.

Congratulations to both Kathy and Dylan on this achievement!

School of Kinesiology attends Pacifica’s Race for Recovery

On Sunday, August 12, community members and participants from Pacifica’s Treatment Centre gathered at Trout Lake for the 1st Annual 5K Fun Run “Race for Recovery”. The School of Kinesiology participated as a partner in the event, which celebrated life, people, community, and the power of exercise in recovery from addiction. Exhilarated runners crossed the finish line to the cheers and support of family, friends, and volunteers. Following the 1 and 5km runs, a festive ceremony led by CTV News Vancouver anchor Coleen Christie brought numerous participants to the microphone all expounding the powerful effect of exercise on mental health and its key role in recovery.

“We now know that exercise induces powerful biological effects on virtually every organ system in the body, including the brain,” said Robert Boushel, Director of the School of Kinesiology. “There is vast sensory input to the brain and hundreds of biomolecules are released into the circulation during exercise. Exercise stimulates growth of new nerve cells and release of proteins such as brain-derived neurotrophic factor that improve health and survival of nerve cells.”

“What we have observed with our clients is that engaging in the exercise program helps them to reconnect with their own sense of being capable in both physical activity as well as their emotional well being,” said Alison Silgardo, Pacifica CEO. “In addition, we observe that clients build a positive sense of connection initially with their peers, but ultimately with the rest of society. This connection helps them to realize that

they belong in society, and that they are much more than their struggles with addiction. Seeing our alumni come back to participate in runs helps them to remain connected not only to recovery but to a healthy lifestyle.

“As the only licensed addiction treatment centre in the Vancouver region (funded by Vancouver Coastal Health), we have been focused on holistic approach (bio, psycho, social, spiritual) to treatment.  The integration of a 52-week exercise program has had a tremendous impact on our clients.  None of this would have been possible without the support of partners over the past two years like the School of Kinesiology,  Sobeys, Racketts and Runners, BC Housing, Worksafe, and Parks Board.”

Congratulations to Eli Puterman, recipient of the 2018 ISPNE Curtis Richter Award

Dr. Eli Puterman is the recipient of the 2018 International Society for Psychoneuroendocrinology (ISPNE) Curt Richter Award. ISPNE has awarded the prestigious Curt Richter Award for over 35 years to a distinguished line of young investigators in the field of psychoneuroendocrinology. The ceremony is held at their annual conference in September, this year in Irvine California. The award is associated with the following manuscript which is currently in press: Puterman E, Weiss J, Lin J, Schilf S, Slusher A L, Johansen K J L, Epel E S. (in press). Aerobic exercise lengthens telomeres and reduces stress in family caregivers: A randomized controlled trial – Curt Richter Award Paper 2018.

The Origins of Balance Deficits and Falls research cluster launches new website

The Origins of Balance Deficits and Falls (OBDAF) research cluster is one of the 23 emerging research clusters funded by the UBC Grants for Catalyzing Research Clusters in 2018. The OBDAF Cluster is led by Drs. Mark Carpenter, Jean-Sébastien Blouin, and Tim Inglis, and includes five other Kinesiology researchers: Drs. Lam, Chua, Kramer, Siegmund, Dalton. These researchers are among the 26 active OBDAF cluster members that are drawn from 6 different departments and schools at UBC, and a wide network of institutions across BC (Univ. of Victoria, SFU), Canada (Univ. of Alberta, Guelph, Brock, Waterloo), and Europe (Basel, Nijmegen, Liverpool, Rotherdam). Cluster members are internationally recognized experts in the study of human balance and mobility, and share a passion for research that aims to understand the mechanistic principles of healthy balance control and origins of balance deficits and falls. The research cluster examines the sensori-motor, orthopaedic, psychological and neurological factors that contribute to fall risk in older adults, and individuals with Parkinson’s disease, stroke, multiple sclerosis, vestibular loss, and traumatic brain injury. This research is crucial for developing new tools, therapeutic interventions and technologies to reduce the likelihood and impact of balance instability and falls. Over the past 5 years, members of the cluster have attracted over $7.3M of funding for 78 projects, and generated over 630 publications with over 6,600 citations. The cluster continues to develop exciting new collaborative research projects and partnerships, and support its growing cluster of trainees. The ODBAF cluster is also excited to announce the recent launch of their new website.

Please visit the website to learn more about the OBDAF Research Cluster, its members, and upcoming activities and events.

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UBC Kinesiology #4 in the world, #1 in Canada in 2018 QS World Rankings

UBC School of Kinesiology (sports-related subjects) is ranked 4th in the world (and 1st in Canada) in the 2018 QS Rankings.

This ranking covers sports (or exercise) science, sports studies, and kinesiology – as well as sports psychology and sports management in certain cases.

QS World University Rankings annually publish global overall rankings as well as 48 subject rankings. The QS Rankings, along with the Academic Ranking of World Universities and the Times Higher Education World University Rankings, are considered the three most widely read university rankings in the world.

The QS World University Rankings by Subject are based upon academic reputation, employer reputation, and research impact (read the full methodology).

Chan Gunn Pavilion serves as new home for sports medicine and exercise science at UBC

Chan Gunn Pavilion. Credit: HCMA

In March 2018, the Chan Gunn Pavilion opened its doors on Wesbrook Mall to serve as the new hub for sports medicine and exercise science at UBC.

The building was made possible after Dr. Chan Gunn, a pioneering Vancouver physician in the field of pain relief, generously donated $5 million to the University for the construction, to create a space exclusively for exercise and sport medicine teaching, research, and patient care.

The 13,480-square-foot pavilion is now one of the first academic sports medicine units in the world, and the first in Canada.

Along with physicians and physical therapists who treat about 3,500 patients a month, the Chan Gunn Pavilion is home to several faculty and students from the School of Kinesiology, who use the space to explore the body’s response to exercise. The building includes rehabilitation space, gym and labs for research into movement mechanisms, injury recovery strategies and optimal exercise training for people with cancer and other chronic diseases.

 

 

KIN faculty publish paper in eLife

UBC KIN faculty member, Jean-Sebastien Blouin, as well as Romain Tisserand, Christopher J Dakin, Machiel HF Van der Loos, Elizabeth A Croft, and Timothy J Inglis have had their paper, “Down regulation of vestibular balance stabilizing mechanisms to enable transition between motor states,” published in the latest edition of the prestigious journal, eLife, which publishes promising research in life and biomedical sciences.

“We set out to discover how we initiate movement in the presence of posture-correcting mechanisms that should oppose movement,” says Jean-Sebastien. “It’s an important question that remains unanswered, despite significant historical discussion. Resolving this question may reconcile theoretical models of movement control and contribute to a better understanding of how we move.”

The aim of the study was to investigate whether the body temporarily suppresses or abruptly reconfigures posture-correcting mechanisms during the transition between standing balance and movement.

“Our ability to stand depends on corrective mechanisms that centre our upright posture, thus preventing falls, through a process that we call standing balance,” says Jean-Sebastien. “Since these posture-correcting mechanisms oppose motion, to begin moving from an upright stance requires either a temporary suppression or an abrupt reconfiguration of these mechanisms. Once movement is underway, posture-correcting mechanisms are reconfigured to maintain posture while moving.”

Sensory cues, like those provided by the vestibular system in the inner ear (which encodes head motion and orientation relative to the gravitational field), actively contribute to the posture-correcting mechanisms involved in maintaining standing balance. Because the vestibular system appears to influence posture only during periods when the body is actively engaged in balance control, KIN researches questioned whether monitoring vestibular involvement in posture-correcting mechanisms would clarify which of the two possibilities occurs between standing balance and movement: a temporary suppression or an abrupt reconfiguration of these mechanisms.

“We examined the continuity of the vestibular control of balance during transition between standing and walking, and during a simple weight transfer between feet during standing,” says Jean-Sebastien. “We applied a small electrical current to the mastoid processes behind the ears of healthy participants and recorded its effects on the forces generated on the feet (a proxy for whole-body balance responses evoked by the vestibular stimulus).”

They found that the body suppresses the vestibular control of balance prior to the initiation and cessation of walking and prior to a shift in loading of the feet while standing. This could have important implications for robotics and patient groups and these results could aid the development of control algorithms to enable robots to exhibit a more robust transition to and from movement. “These findings could also help us to understand disorders of transition in patients, such as the ‘freezing of gait’ that occurs in individuals with Parkinson disease,” says Jean-Sebastien.

The paper can be found through the eLife website.

Vancouver to host the 2020 International Society for Physical Activity and Health Congress

The University of British Columbia’s School of Kinesiology (Faculty of Education), the Indigenous Physical Activity and Cultural Circle, the Vancouver Convention Centre, and Tourism Vancouver are proud to announce that Vancouver will host the 2020 International Society for Physical Activity and Health (ISPAH) Congress, October 28 to 31, 2020. The ISPAH Congress is held every two years and represents the world’s largest forum related to physical activity and public health.The ISPAH is recognized as the leading global society focusing on promoting physical activity across the lifespan. They partner with international and national agencies to promote global health. Vancouver 2020 marks the 10-year anniversary of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, and the last time this congress was held in Canada.

Based out of the spectacular Vancouver Convention Centre, the congress will bring together over 3,000 thought-leaders, policy makers, community leaders, Indigenous elders, and researchers from over 30 countries for conversation, debate, and innovation based on the theme “The Holistic Approach to Health and Wellness Through Physical Activity: Body, Spirit, and Mind.”

Key objectives of the conference will be to advance our knowledge of the benefits of physical activity for optimal health and well-being across the lifespan and to transform our understanding of wellness within Indigenous communities.

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