School of Kinesiology associate professor Lisa A. Kihl, PhD, and lecturer Vicki Schull, PhD, have coauthored an article in the Journal of Sport Management titled “Understanding the Meaning of Representation in a Deliberative Democratic Governance System.” Their research demonstrates how athletes can have an influential voice in sport governance.
Donald R. Dengel, PhD, professor in the School of Kinesiology and director of the Laboratory of Integrative Human Physiology, was recently invited to present at the 2019 National Lipid Association Fall Clinical Lipid Update in Minneapolis, Minnesota on September 14, 2019. The title of Dengel’s presentation was ”Increasing Physical Activity in Special Populations.”
Madeline Czeck, Kinesiology MS student, is the lead author on an article published in the International Journal of Sports Medicine. The article, “Total and regional body composition of NCAA division I collegiate female softball athletes,” examines body composition of 128 NCAA Division I female softball players using dual X-ray absorptiometry (DXA). Although no significant differences in total or regional lean muscle were found, the study observed that outfielders had significantly lower fat mass in the trunk and legs than pitchers. In addition, the study found that the throwing arm had greater lean muscle mass and bone mineral density than the non-throwing arm at all positions. These measurement values are important to coaches and trainers as normative positional DXA data for collegiate female softball players.
Donald R. Dengel, PhD, professor of kinesiology and director of the Laboratory of Integrative Human Physiology, and Christiana Raymond-Pope, PhD, and Tyler Bosch, PhD, both graduates of the School of Kinesiology, were also co-authors.
Kara Marlatt, PhD, MPH., a 2015 graduate of the School of Kinesiology, is lead author on an article published in the Journal of Adolescent and Young Adult Oncology. “The effect of atorvastatin on vascular function and structure in young adult survivors of childhood cancer: a randomized, placebo-controlled pilot clinical trial,” examines the use of statins in adult cancer survivors who are at risk for vascular disease. The study observed that six months of atorvastatin treatment did not improve endothelial function or arterial stiffness in young adult cancer survivors. Donald R. Dengel, Ph.D., professor of kinesiology and director of the Laboratory of Integrative Human Physiology in the School, was Marlatt’s doctoral adviser and is a co-author on this article.
Michael G. Wade, PhD, Kinesiology professor of movement science, has been appointed an Executive Editor for Journal of Motor Behavior. The multidisciplinary journal of movement neuroscience is devoted to furthering understanding of the basic processes underlying motor control and learning. Wade, one of three executive editors of the publication, was appointed to a three-year term.
Kinesiology professor and director of the Affordance Perception-Action Laboratory (APAL) Tom Stoffregen, PhD, was quoted in a recent WCCO feature story about motion sickness, and why some people are affected and others aren’t.
The article was searching for an answer to the question: what happens to our bodies on an intense MN State Fair ride?
Both Stoffregen and Dr. Tina Huang, an ear, nose and throat specialist with the University of Minnesota, were interviewed about the different scientific perspectives regarding motion sickness.
Kinesiology professor Maureen Weiss, PhD, has published a chapter in the Oxford Handbook of Human Motivation, 2nd Ed., edited by Prof. Richard Ryan. Weiss’s chapter, “Motivational Processes in Youth Sport and Physical Activity,” synthesizes theory-driven research on determinants and outcomes of physical activity motivation and participation among children and adolescents. All contemporary theories of motivation are represented in the handbook, as well as a number of scholars in specialty areas and applied topics.
The handbook is part of an ambitious ongoing project undertaken by Oxford University Press that entails a comprehensive library covering the complete field of psychology, edited by distinguished scholars in their areas. The Library comprises handbooks in the truest sense of the word: books that summarize and synthesize a topic, define the current scholarship, and set the agenda for future research. The handbooks are published as hardbound books, but are being developed with electronic delivery in mind so that content is integrated across topics and available as a fully integrated electronic library.
Kinesiology professor Tom Stoffregen, PhD, has published a chapter in a newly released book, Perception as Information Detection: Reflections on Gibson’s Ecological Approach to Visual Perception. The book commemorates the 40th anniversary of James J. Gibson’s landmark work, The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception (1979). Current scholars were asked to reflect on individual chapters from Gibson’s book. Stoffregen’s chapter, “The use and uses of depiction,” reflects on Gibson’s chapter, “Pictures and visual awareness.”
The complete citation is: Stoffregen, T. A. (2020). The use and uses of depiction. In J. B. Wagman and J. J. C. Blau (Eds.), Perception as Information Detection: Reflections on Gibson’s Ecological Approach to Visual Perception (pp. 255-273). New York: Routledge.
ABC News Inside Science has published a story on how despite improvements made in virtual reality (VR) systems over the years, many VR users still experience motion sickness, quoting Kinesiology professor Tom Stoffregen, PhD, extensively.
Individuals, particularly women, experience motion sickness differently, and Stoffregen’s theory of postural instability as the cause was discussed in the article. He attended a conference on July 28 in Los Angeles with other researchers who study “cybersickness,” as VR-related motion sickness is called, during the SIGGRAPH2019 conference. The group discussed what they can do to help prevent VR-related motion sickness, as well as various theories on why cybersickness occurs, why it only happens to some people, and what makes women especially vulnerable.
Stoffregen is also director of the Affordance Perception-Action Laboratory (APAL).
Mediation talks broke down over equal pay between the U.S. Women’s National Team and the U.S. Soccer Federation last week, bringing the dispute closer to a jury trial.
Caroline Heffernan, assistant professor at Temple University, who received her PhD from the School of Kinesiology in 2018, was interviewed on local TV station CBS Philly on August 15 about the dispute.
“The athletes in the U.S. Women’s National League have done an important job of saying this matters, but it’s a lot broader than just that team and that league. If we look at the bonus structure of FIFA and the amount that they pay out to the male winners of the World Cup and female winners of the World Cup, it is astronomically different,” she said.
Watch the interview here.
Tucker Center director Nicole M. LaVoi, PhD, senior lecturer in the School of Kinesiology, was quoted in a long-form article on professional women soccer players’ ongoing struggle for equal pay. The article, “What’s Next for the USWNT and Their Equal Pay Lawsuit?” was published online by The Ringer, a sports and pop culture website and podcast network.
The article also delves into the difficulty of sustaining the public’s interest and support in women’s sports after the excitement of winning a world championship fades. LaVoi says, “I would challenge readers and fans of women’s soccer with all the excitement and all the interest and engagement they had around the World Cup, if they could figure out even one way to keep engaged, to sustain their interests, to support the team, to support a league, to support the sport, whatever that looks like to them. If those millions of fans did that, I think that helps push the needle.”
A multidisciplinary consortium at the U of M is doing groundbreaking work in the emerging field of neurorobotics.
Kinesiology professor Jürgen Konczak, PhD, director of the Human Sensorimotor Control Laboratory, is one of three leaders of the Neurorobotics Research Consortium. Each has a distinct but compatible view of the application of robotics to neuroscience, and they gather regularly to discuss advancements in the new field and identify projects to work on. One of their goals is to make the U of M a leading epicenter for research and development in the field.
The group’s founder, Andrew Grande, MD, assistant professor in the Department of Neurosurgery, is also involved in the Brain Aneurysm Research Consortium at the U of M. The other member is Tim Kowalewski, PhD, assistant professor in Mechanical Engineering.
Potential projects range from exploring the use of robots that assist with neurosurgery to using robotic devices for neurological rehabilitation. The Consortium has the potential to bring together academics whose paths normally would never intersect.
The Consortium recently invited Jeff Krichnar, PhD, professor of Cognitive Sciences at University of California-Irvine, to speak. He heads the Cognitive Anteater Robotics Laboratory at UCI. “I like to get opportunities to talk about what we do and learn about what others are doing,” he said. “Seeing the integration of the medical school with engineering on campus was wonderful.”
Read more about the Consortium here.
Jürgen Konczak, PhD, professor in the School of Kinesiology and lab director of the Human Sensorimotor Control Laboratory (HSCL), is the principal investigator on a grant from the National Science Foundation as part of its Program for Innovation. This program promotes the translation of technology developed in university laboratories to a marketable product.
The HSC lab team will use the award to further develop Wristbot technology and to implement changes desired by rehabilitation hospitals that use such technology to enhance the physical therapy used for people with stroke, traumatic brain or spinal cord injury.
Tucker Center director Nicole Lavoi, PhD, was quoted in a PBS NewsHour article on the sudden departure of world champion U.S. Women’s Soccer Team head coach Jill Ellis.
Ellis, who is the highest paid women’s soccer coach in the world, said the timing was right for her and her family, but her departure has fueled the conversation about the consistent disparity in pay for coaching women’s vs. men’s sports teams. U.S. Soccer had not offered Ellis a new contract before the World Cup, but agreed to increase her pay from $300,000 to $500,000, still much less than the salaries of the coaches for the men’s national team.
“It’s pretty clear that head coaches of men’s teams get paid far more than head coaches of women’s teams, which is where the women are,” LaVoi was quoted as saying. Read the full article here.
Lisa A. Kihl, PhD, associate professor in the School of Kinesiology published in the Journal of Intercollegiate Sport. Her article, “Individual-Level Explanations of Corruption Within an Intercollegiate Context” generates an interdisciplinary framework of micro-level accounts of sport corruption in intercollegiate athletics.
An article co-authored by Donald R. Dengel, Ph.D., was picked up by the PedEndoGram, a monthly collection of the three most important publications in pediatric endocrinology compiled by the Division of Pediatric Endocrinology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The PedEndoGram is distributed world-wide to pediatric endocrinologists and nurses.
The article, “Use of an aromatase inhibitor in children with congenital adrenal hyperplasia: impact of Anastrozole on bone mineral density and visceral adipose tissue,” was originally published in Clinical Endocrinology. The study found that Anastrozole, an aromatase inhibitor that has been used in males with short stature to delay bone maturation, significantly reduced bone age advancement while advancing bone age without adversely affecting bone mineral density or visceral adipose tissue in children with congenital adrenal hyperplasia. The objective was to evaluate Anastrozole’s effect on bone mineral density and visceral adipose tissue in children with congenital adrenal hyperplasia. The paper concluded that longitudinal studies of Anastrozole in children with congenital adrenal hyperplasia are needed to validate these findings.
Dengel is a professor in the School of Kinesiology and director of the Laboratory of Integrative Human Physiology.
The Women’s World Cup, with issues surrounding pay equity, winning records, and other topics related to professional women athletes, has inspired a world-wide conversation about women in sports at this place in time. And the Tucker Center for Research on Girls and Women in Sport has been a rich source for the media on these topics.
In the Star Tribune, editorial writer and columnist John Rash writes about the documentary just released, “Maiden,” comparing the story of the all-women crew who raced a boat in a nine-month, round the world race against all odds, with the success of the Women’s World Cup winners. Nicole LaVoi, PhD, director of the Tucker Center, was interviewed extensively.
LaVoi and Tucker Center affiliated scholar Cheryl Cooky were interviewed July 14 on Business Radio, powered by the Wharton School, talking women’s sport, the Women’s World Cup and why female role models matter.
And Tucker Center director emerita Mary Jo Kane, PhD, was interviewed July 12 on TPT – Twin Cities PBS Almanac, where she discussed the significance of women’s sport and the Women’s World Cup.
School of Kinesiology alumnus Luke Carlson was awarded an honorary Doctor of Science degree from Solent University on Tuesday, July 9.
Carlson completed his Bachelor of Science and Master of Science with the University of Minnesota, and studied Executive Leadership, Strategy and Innovation at Stanford University. He is an American College of Sports Medicine Certified Exercise Physiologist and Cancer Exercise Specialist, and is the founder and CEO of Discover Strength.
“My time at the School of Kinesiology was foundational to stimulating my passion for the field of exercise science, Carlson said. “I can vividly recall sitting in a class in Cooke hall thinking to myself, I love learning of all of this; motor units, muscle fibers, all of it.”
Nicole LaVoi, PhD, co-director of the Tucker Center for Research on Girls and Women in Sport in the School of Kinesiology, will appear in a unique event presented by the Theater of Public Policy tomorrow, July 9, at the Amsterdam Bar and Hall in St. Paul.
“Sports! Women Coaching Women” will delve creatively into LaVoi’s ongoing research on women hired to coach women’s sports in colleges. Her studies have produced important data that she compiles annually in a report, Women in College Coaching.
The theater group, described “as if C-SPAN were suddenly swarmed by the cast of SNL,” has garnered national media attention and fans for its unique blend of serious issues and improv comedy.
Ticket information is available here.
Dr. Zan Gao, associate professor and Director of Physical Activity Epidemiology Laboratory in the School of Kinesiology, taught KIN 3720 Martial Arts and Medicine: Traditions in China, a short-term study abroad course in Beijing, China from May 16 through May 31, 2019.
Students who took this short-term study abroad program learned hands-on skills such as Chinese Massage, Acupuncture, cupping, Chinese Medicine, Tai Chi, Martial Arts, Sanda, and Chinese Calligraphy, Chinese Igo, Dragon Dance, etc. They also visited elite athletic training and research centers in Beijing, and competed with Chinese college students in volleyball, beach volleyball and other sports.
Additionally, students were invited to cultural events and visited historical sites in order to learn about, and experience, the Chinese culture. Students visited the Great Wall, Summer Palace, Temple of Heaven, Olympic Venue, Beijing zoo, Forbidden City, Tian’anmen Square, 798 Art Street, Hutong, and Silk Market for cultural shopping.
