Podcasts – Distinguished Speakers Series

Distinguished Speaker Series: Contemporary systems-based approaches to physical activity

Diane Crone is a Professor in Exercise and Health and Director of the (soon to be launched) Centre for Health, Activity and Wellbeing Research at the Cardiff Metropolitan University.

Her expertise lies in the area of the design, delivery and evaluation of health promoting interventions in primary and secondary health care, and in the community. She has published internationally in the areas of exercise referral scheme evaluation, mental health promotion, arts for health and in physical activity pathway intervention evaluations.

Distinguished Speaker Series: What ‘startles’ tell us about motor control in health & disease

Early release, and sometimes also augmentation, of motor responses is called StartReact. It was first demonstrated for voluntary single-joint movements, and later studies confirmed that this effect also pertains to more automated whole-body responses, such as postural responses, stepping and avoiding sudden obstacles.

In her talk, Dr. Vivian Weerdesteyn presents work in patients with corticospinal lesions that supports the involvement of the reticulospinal system in StartReact, discusses how conflicting findings in choice reaction tasks may be understood within this framework, and implications of StartReact results for motor control in health and disease.

Distinguished Speaker Series: Challenges, Complexities & Compromises – Australian Aboriginal Sport History

Murray Phillips
Professor of Sport History, School of Human Movement and Nutrition Sciences
University of Queensland

Dr. Phillips discusses his involvement in collaborating, researching and writing about Aboriginal Sport History. Describing his research as one of the most challenging, and rewarding, opportunities of his scholastic career.

The challenges involve making meaningful contributions to Aboriginal communities though history making. He describes how it involves appropriate recognition of, and involvement with, Aboriginal people. It involves writing history with his Aboriginal partners that employs appropriate theoretical and conceptual lenses, and strength-based approaches to history, that contribute to building strong and resilient communities, empowering them in the present and into the future.