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.
