Emma Lee, PhD, 2018 graduate of the School of Kinesiology, is lead author on an article in press in the Journal of Human Sport and Exercise. Christopher Lundstrom, PhD, lecturer in the School of Kinesiology and Lee’s doctoral co-adviser, is one of the authors.
The citation is: Lee, E.J., Snyder, E.M., & Lundstrom, C.J. (2019). Predictors of long-distance race performance in master runners. Journal of Human Sport and Exercise, in press. https://doi.org/10.14198/jhse.2020.152.10.
The Human Sensorimotor Control Laboratory received a $50,000 award from the National Science Foundation to participate in the national NSF Innovation Corps program. The purpose of this grant is to move forward the translation of a technology developed in the lab to treat a voice disorder called spasmodic dysphonia (SD).
SD causes a permanent hoarse and strangled voice that makes it exhausting to communicate. Doctoral student Arash Mahnan, lead engineer on the project, and Jessica Holst-Wolf, PhD, will form a team with business mentor Bryan Claseman to conduct customer discovery interviews across the nation. Interviews will take place over an 8-week period, and will include patients, otolaryngologists, speech therapists and other stakeholders in the medical device industry. The goal of these activities is to explore the opportunities and challenges for the possible commercialization of the technology. Jürgen Konczak, PhD, professor in the School of Kinesiology, serves as the principal investigator on the project.
Zan Gao, PhD, associate professor in the School of Kinesiology and Director of the Physical Activity Epidemiology Laboratory, delivered an oral presentation at the 2019 International Society of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity conference. Gao gave his presentation, “Effects of Active Video Games on Preschool Children’s Motor Skills, Cognition, Sedentary and Physical Activity Behaviors” on June 6, in Prague, Czech.
This presentation examined the effectiveness of a school-based exergaming intervention on preschool children’s motor skills, cognition, sedentary, and physical activity behaviors as compared to usual care (recess). It was found that the exergaming program demonstrated a positive effect in promoting preschool children’s motor skills, moderate-to-vigorous physical activity and cognition at school.
Kevin King, MA, teaching specialist at the School of Kinesiology, gave two 45-minute presentations at the 2019 Minnesota Wild Leadership Summit, a free event for boys and girls high school hockey captains and coaches. King’s presentations included a session for coaches, “How to build a sustainable culture,” and a session for captains, “Conflict Resolution.”
In addition to presenting, King was also a member of the planning committee for the event.
The 2019 Leadership Summit was the 3rd annual, and it was open to the first 400 boys and girls hockey captains and coaches who registered. Participants had the opportunity to hear from industry leaders, coaches and former captains from the State of Hockey and beyond. This event is intended to provide players and coaches with leadership and team building skills and advance the sport of hockey.
Tucker Center director Nicole M. LaVoi, PhD, will be traveling to Dallas, TX, to deliver the keynote address at the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference’s (SCAC) inaugural symposium on Women in Athletics Leadership on June 26. She is also the guest speaker at the opening breakfast on Thursday, June 27. The two-day event is designed to provide professional development opportunities to prepare female administrators, coaches and student-athletes to be better prepared to administer in today’s challenging environment.
Donald R. Dengel, Ph.D., professor in the School of Kinesiology and director of the Laboratory of Integrative Human Physiology, recently co-authored an article titled “Use of an aromatase inhibitor in children with congenital adrenal hyperplasia: impact of Anastrozole on bone mineral density and visceral adipose tissue’” that was 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.
Maureen Weiss, PhD, professor in the School of Kinesiology, was invited by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (USDHHS) to present at a public listening session intended to inform the development of a National Youth Sports Strategy. Representing the National Academy of Kinesiology, Weiss and colleague Dr. Dan Gould (Institute for the Study of Youth Sports, Michigan State University) opened the day-long session by summarizing the current state of youth sports and proposing recommendations for how the government can implement the initiative. You can see their presentation here.
The session focused on four topics: (1) participation benefits and barriers, (2) private and public strategies to increase youth sports participation, (3) metrics to gauge and improve participation, and (4) strategies to recruit and train coaches. Emphasis was also placed on reducing barriers for underrepresented populations, including girls, racial/ethnic minorities, and youth with disabilities.
The USDHHS is charged with drafting the National Youth Sports Strategy Report by early summer, an initiative mandated by Executive Order 13824, declared on February 26, 2018.
Weiss said she is excited about the potential of this initiative, “It is encouraging that the government is recognizing the potential for youth sports to contribute to physical activity and other health outcomes. They are taking steps to promote youth sports programming and education for coaches, as well as to reduce disparities in participation of underserved groups.”
Lisa A. Kihl, PhD, associate professor of sport management in the School of Kinesiology and director of the Global Institute for Responsible Sport Organizations (GIRSO), traveled to Ghent University in Belguim May 6-10, where she served as an external member of the examination committee for doctoral student Bram Constandt. He successfully defended his thesis titled “Ethics management in football clubs.”
During Kihl’s visit to Ghent University, she gave a lecture on “Grounded theory: What is it and how do you do it?” She also presented to Belguim sport federation leaders, legal experts and lottery representatives on “Industry trends on the causes and reforms efforts of matching and fraud in sport.”
Arash Mahnan, PhD student in the School of Kinesiology, received a runner up award in the 2019 Walleye Tank Competition, Junior Anglers category, for his pitch about the medical device he is developing in the Human Sensorimotor Control Lab. The device is a non-invasive neuromodulation medical device for treatment of the voice disorder spasmodic dysphonia (SD). Read more about Mahnan’s device here.
Mahnan competed against ten other companies in the Junior Anglers category, reserved for those in the early stages of business development. Through his runner up award, Mahnan received feedback regarding the commercialization and development plans he presented. Additionally, his presentation at the competition connected him with potential investors.
There were two other levels of competition, Mid-level Reelers and Professionals, reserved for those who are further along in their business idea and development. Participants had 120 seconds to explain and pitch their device followed by 3 minutes of Q&A from the judging panel.
Walleye Tank is a Minnesota based life science pitch competition which provides an educational opportunity for emerging and established medical and life science companies. Hosted by the Mayo Clinic, the Walleye Tank competition focuses on removing barriers for entrepreneurs and connecting them with an audience of investors, subject matter experts, service providers, job seekers, and mentors to help accelerate their businesses.
Chris Curry, Kinesiology doctoral candidate and member of the Affordance Perception-Action Laboratory, has been awarded a $1000 NSF Research Trainee Mini-grant for lab equipment. The lab equipment will be used for two research projects that focus on Virtual Reality (VR). One project is related to Curry’s dissertation research, which involves investigating ways to potentially mitigate cybersickness in VR. The second project will focus on validating commercial VR equipment as a way to capture movement data.
Curry, a member of the Affordance-Perception Action Laboratory, will work with fellow graduate students Jinseok Oh and Arash Mahnan, members of the Human Sensorimotor Control Laboratory, on the second project. The grants are administered by the U of M’s Center for Applied and Translational Sensory Science (CATSS) and Center for Cognitive Sciences (CCS).
Arash Mahnan, PhD student in the School of Kinesiology, was invited to present at the 30th National Spasmodic Dysphonia Association (NSDA) symposium held in Boston April 26th-27. The symposium was designed for patients with SD to meet and get the most recent updates on the current research related to SD. At the event, he discussed the lab’s current clinical trials on laryngeal vibration as a treatment for SD. Mahnan is a member of the School’s Human Sensorimotor Control Laboratory and is advised by Jürgen Konczak, PhD.
Arash Mahnan, Kinesiology PhD student, has been awarded a $3000 STARTUP Mini-Grant from MIN-CORPS for customer discovery and product development expenses for the Spasmodic Dysphonia (SD) Collar device he has been developing with colleagues in the Human Sensorimotor Control Laboratory.
Spasmodic dysphonia (SD) is a voice disorder that leads to strained or choked speech, and is unresponsive to speech therapy. Mahnan and his colleagues have shown that voice quality in SD improves when non-invasive vibrotactile stimulation (VTS) is applied to the larynx. They have created and are testing a device that applies VTS and can be worn by SD patients during daily life. The project is supported by the U of M’s Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) through the Translational Grant Program, which is focused on rare disease.
Tyler Bosch, PhD, 2014 graduate of the School of Kinesiology, is the lead author of an article recently published in Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. “Body composition and bone mineral density of division 1 collegiate football players: A consortium of college athlete research study” is the largest study done on total and regional body composition in Division 1 collegiate football players using dual X-ray absorptiometry (DXA).
Bosch tested 467 athletes from four NCAA Division 1 universities participating in the study, which provides positional differences in total and regional measures of body composition. Donald R. Dengel, PhD, professor and director of the Laboratory of Integrative Human Physiology in the School of Kinesiology, and Kat Keller, a 2017 graduate of the School of Kinesiology, are co-authors on the article.
Diane Wiese-Bjornstal, PhD, associate director and professor at the School of Kinesiology published a chapter in the newly published book, Sport, Psychology and Christianity: Welfare, Performance and Consultancy, 1st Edition. Her chapter is titled “Christian Beliefs and Behaviours as Health Protective, Resilience and Intervention Factors in the Context of Sport Injuries.” This book considers the relationship between sport psychology provision and Christianity from a welfare and performance perspective.
Courtney Boucher, School of Kinesiology doctoral student this fall and Pam Borton Fellowship recipient in the Tucker Center for research on Girls & Women in Sport is quoted in the KSTP News 5 (ABC) online piece, “Women’s hockey stars announce boycott in demand for 1 league.” Boucher speaks to the glaring disparity between women’s and men’s hockey salaries and benefits.
The School of Kinesiology’s Student Council put on the fourth annual Research Day event on Friday, April 26, at the McNamara Alumni Center. This year’s event featured flash talks by five School of Kinesiology graduate students, Qiyin Huang, Saurav Dubey, Anton Hesse, DJ McDonough, and Eydie Kramer; a keynote address by alumnus Zachary Pope, PhD, who spoke about how to find your future “why” in a post-graduation world; a panel of alumni who spoke about their current work experiences and how their time at the School of Kinesiology helped prepare them for their careers; and a lobby filled with research posters presented by School of Kinesiology students and labs.
Anton Hesse, a masters student in the Laboratory of Physiological Hygiene and Exercise Science (LPHES), was awarded Best Presentation for his five minute talk, “Examining the Respiratory Compensation Point with Automated Methods in Recreational Runners Training for a Marathon.” He spoke about his research on what makes a good endurance athlete, and how to measure successful endurance athlete training and performance.
The Best Poster award was split between three posters. Winning posters were “Sensitivity to Changes in Dynamic Affordances for walking” by movement science doctoral student Nicolette Peterson, “Time and Money Related to Hair as Barriers to Physical Activity in African-American Women” by undergraduate kinesiology major Michael Urvig, and “The association between parent physical activity and child physical activity with self-efficacy, outcome expectations, and family support” by undergraduate kinesiology major Amanda Schmid. Urvig and Schmid both worked with the Behavioral Physical Activity Laboratory (BPAL) to do their research.
Thank you to everyone who attended the 2019 School of Kinesiology Research Day, and congratulations to this year’s contest winners. To see more photos from 2019 School of Kinesiology Research Day see the School of Kinesiology’s Facebook page.
Thomas Smith, PhD, adjunct professor in the School of Kinesiology, is coauthor of a chapter in this recently published book: Graf, M., and Smith, T.J. (2019). Certification and professional standards. In E.A.P. Koningsveld (Ed.), History of the International Ergonomics Association, 1985-2018 (pp. 104-118). Zurich, Switzerland: IEA Press.
Donald R. Dengel, PhD, professor of kinesiology and director of the Laboratory of Integrative Human Physiology at the School of Kinesiology is a co-author of an article recently published in the Journal of Clinical Densitometry. The article entitled “DXA-determined regional adiposity relates to insulin resistance in a young adult population with overweight and obesity” examined the relationship of regional measures of body composition to indices of insulin resistance.
The authors reported that in women the strongest correlations were observed between the android-to-gynoid ratio for indices of insulin resistance. In men the strongest correlations, indices of insulin sensitivity were with android fat mass. Visceral adipose tissue was observed to be related to the insulin sensitivity index in both males and females.
School of Kinesiology senior lecturer Nicole LaVoi, PhD, director of the Tucker Center for Research on Girls and Women in Sport, will be presenting at an event sponsored by Gusties in Business, a professional organization for Gustavus Adolphus College alumni, on Thursday, May 9, in Minneapolis. LaVoi’s presentation for the organization’s Leadership Series is “Why Women Matter and The Role of Sport.”
LaVoi is an alumna of Gustavus Adolphus College in Northfield, MN.
School of Kinesiology doctoral candidate Christopher Curry, movement science emphasis, was awarded a professional development grant from CEHD’s graduate and professional student organization, GradSEHD.
Curry will be using the $250 award to attend a non-linear methods workshop. He is a member of the Affordance Perception-Action Laboratory (APAL) and is advised by Tom Stoffregen, PhD.
