RPLS undergrad Laura Stigen awarded MN Recreation and Park Foundation student scholarship

January 11, 2016

Laura Stigen, senior in the RPLS program in the School of Kinesiology, has been awarded a Minnesota Recreation and Park Foundation student scholarship. The $1,000 award is available to juniors, seniors and graduate students majoring in a Minnesota four-year park and recreation program, or permanent residents of Minnesota majoring in a neighboring state in the same degree. Applicants must display excellence in their abilities, leadership qualities, job experience and commitment to the park and recreation field.

Ms. Stigen, who also has an occupational therapy assistant degree, returned to school last spring for her RPLS degree, which will help her attain her dream job as a recreational therapist in a homeless shelter. She has been a volunteer in homeless shelters since high school, “and these have been the most rewarding learning experiences of my life,” she says. She once took a train to Portland, OR, to help their homeless population.

She has lead many support groups and is an inspirational speaker on mental health and suicide awareness. She continues to lead recreational activities in her community and is currently a full-time art teacher while working towards her degree. She says:

“Being a Minnesota Recreation and Park Foundation Scholarship recipient is a great honor. It has given me the opportunity to really embrace my last semester of college and focus on my internship. I think it is a beautiful thing when a career and a passion come together. I am very lucky to have found my purpose a long time ago and never gave up on chasing my degree.”

Ms. Stigen was also awarded both the Kinesiology and Leisure Studies Scholarship and the Edith Mueller Park and Recreation Memorial Award for 2015-2016.

Konczak gives invited talk at the University of Pisa in Italy

January 6, 2016

Jürgen Konczak, Ph.D., director of the Human Sensorimotor Control Lab (HSCL), presented a talk at the BioRobotics Institute at the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna Pisa.

This elite School of Advanced Studies is part of the University of Pisa, which was founded 1343 and is one of the oldest universities in the world. Dr. Konczak spoke on the challenges and opportunities that arise from the introduction of robotic devices designed to aid the rehabilitation of human patients after neurological injury.

Tyler Bosch, Kin Ph.D. graduate, publishes in Metabolism

January 5, 2016

Tyler Bosch, Ph.D., a 2014 graduate of the School of Kinesiology, is the lead author of an article published in the journal Metabolism. The article, “In adult twins, visceral fat accumulation depends more on exceeding sex-specific adiposity thresholds than on genetics,” reported that while total body fat is influenced by genetics, visceral adipose tissue accumulation may depend more on whether a person’s percent body fat is above their sex-specific adiposity threshold. These results suggest that there may not be a genetic predisposition for visceral adipose tissue accumulation but rather it is a result of a predisposition for total fat accumulation. This article was selected as one of the most interesting and important original research studies published in Metabolism during 2015. Donald R. Dengel, Ph.D., kinesiology professor and director of the Laboratory of Integrative Human Physiology in the School of Kinesiology, is a co-author on this article and was Dr. Bosch’s adviser.

Dengel and former doctoral advisee publish in Journal of Pediatrics

January 4, 2016

Donald R. Dengel, Ph.D., Kinesiology professor and director of the Laboratory of Integrative Human Physiology, is a co-author of an article recently published in the Journal of Pediatrics. The article entitled “Relations among adiposity and insulin resistance with flow-mediated dilation, carotid intima-media thickness, and arterial stiffness in children” examines the associations of adiposity and insulin resistance with measures of vascular structure and function in children. A Ph.D. advisee of Dengel, Aaron Kelly, associate professor in the U of M School of Medicine and 2004 School of Kinesiology graduate, was also a co-author on the article.

Biology undergrad Matt Tran awarded URS to work with Dr. Zan Gao

December 30, 2015

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Matt Tran, sophomore in Biology, has been awarded an Undergraduate Research Scholarship (URS) to work with Zan Gao, Ph.D., assistant professor in Kinesiology and director of the Physical Activity Epidemiology Laboratory (PAEL). The URS award is granted to prospective freshmen at the U. Tran received the award last year and has since been working with Dr. Gao to come up with his research project studying the feasibility of the smartphone application, MapMyFitness, in promoting physical activity in breast cancer survivors. Tran has an interest in sports medicine and has been involved in related research since June 2015.

Kin Ph.D. Alex Kasak publishes in European Journal of Applied Physiology

December 28, 2015

Alex Kasak, Kinesiology Ph.D. advised by Eric Snyder, Ph.D., director of the School of Kinesiology’s Clinical Exercise Physiology Laboratory (CEPL), is co-author of an article recently published in the European Journal of Applied Physiology titled “Pulmonary capillary reserve and exercise capacity at high altitude in healthy humans.”

The article reflects Kasak’s primary area of interest, pulmonary adaptations at high altitude. The main findings of the study suggest that well-acclimatized individuals do not recruit additional pulmonary capillaries in response to exercise at high altitudes. However, in a small number of individuals, additional recruitment of pulmonary capillaries may be possible and could contribute to maintenance of aerobic capacity at high altitude.

Kinesiology undergrad awarded UROP to do research in CEPL

December 28, 2015

Michael Vogel, a senior in the School of Kinesiology, has received a U of M Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) award to work with assistant professor and faculty mentor Eric Snyder, Ph.D., in the Clinical Exercise Physiology Laboratory (CEPL). Vogel has been involved with research in CEPL since March 2015, looking at the role of inflammatory cytokines in cystic fibrosis, a genetic disease in which mucous build-up in the lungs eventually causes respiratory failure. Vogel’s research aims to characterize the inflammatory profiles of stable and non-stable patients.

“Mike has been working on a volunteer basis in our laboratory for over a year and has a keen interest in research,” Dr. Snyder notes. “This award will allow Mike to chase down an interesting area that is important for patients with CF, and our laboratory is excited to work with him on this.”

Gophers punter/kinesiology master’s student aims to make the season brighter

December 22, 2015

Peter Mortell, sport management M.Ed. student in the School of Kinesiology and a punter on the Gopher football team, is a star both on and off the field.

Last year around the holiday season, he spent a $452 Best Buy gift card he had received as a Citrus Bowl participant on gifts for the St. Joseph’s Home for Children. This year, he set his sights a little higher. Through a crowdfunded campaign called “A Very Specialist Christmas,” he aimed to raise $25,000 for the University of Minnesota Masonic Children’s Hospital. Mortell wants to make sure teenagers who must stay in the hospital over the holidays are not forgotten.

“Many times, people generously donate gifts for younger kids and children,” he says on his website. “As amazing as this is, often the demographic of teenage patients gets overlooked — but not this year. My goal is to raise money so that we can purchase gifts that not only current patients at the hospital can use, but future patients as well.”

Mortell originally intended to raise $10,000, but after reaching that in just 12 hours, he decided to set the bar higher. He exceeded his goal of $25,000 last week, raising over $27,000 for the cause. He received $1,000 apiece from U of M President Eric Kaler, former football coach Jerry Kill, and former football captain Jim Carter. A man he’s never met donated $5,000. The goal was reached with many smaller donations, too — some gave just $5. Mortell is currently searching for a corporate sponsor to match the donation.

Learn more about Peter Mortell and “A Very Specialist Christmas” here.

Read the Star Tribune story.

Tianou Zhang presents at Journey Through Science Day in New York

December 21, 2015

Tianou Zhang, Kinesiology PhD student advised by Li Li Ji, PhD, presented his research on “Absorption and Elimination of Oat Avenanthramides (AVA) in Humans after Acute Consumption of Oat Cookies” at the Journey Through Science Day December 14 in New York. The event was sponsored by the New York Academy of Sciences and PepsiCo. Fifty exceptional students and early career scientists were selected for this unique opportunity to interact with PepsiCo’s R&D leadership, learn about their efforts to develop products rooted in science-based nutrition, get an exclusive glimpse of how science has shaped their careers, and gain an understanding of what it is like to work in a global team environment.

Mr. Zhang’s project, sponsored by PepsiCo Nutrition, studies the metabolism of a beneficial bioactive compound in oats called Avenanthramide and explores its protection against eccentric exercise-induced muscle damage and inflammation.

Mr. Zhang is a graduate assistant in Kinesiology and works with Dr. Ji in the School’s Laboratory of Physiological Hygiene and Exercise Science (LPHES).

KIN Student Council wins 2016 Research Day grant

December 18, 2015

The Kinesiology Student Council recently acquired a grant of nearly $1500 from the University of Minnesota Student Union and Activities Board and Coca-Cola to host the 2016 Kinesiology Research Day.

The event will be an opportunity for School of Kinesiology graduate and undergraduate students, as well as faculty and staff from the School of Kinesiology and related disciplines, to interact in an interdisciplinary forum, exchange ideas, and present their research achievements.

The KIN Reseach Day will be held on Friday, April 1, 2016 from 9 am to 4 pm in 400 Walter Library Suite.

Kim published in column for Pyeongchang magazine.

December 17, 2015

Young Ho Kim, a School of Kinesiology doctoral student in the Sport Management program advised by Lisa Kihl, PhD., published a column entitled ‘Who is indifferent?’ [in Korean] for Pyeongchang magazine.

The magazine is a special monthly issue published for the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics that will be held in South Korea.

The column critiques a lack of public relations for the event and discusses a need for more actively promoting the upcoming Winter Olympics. Based on his experiences teaching Sport Management students, Kim realized that none of the students in his class knew which country will be hosting the next 2018 Winter Olympics. When he takes into consideration the program’s size and reputation, it is kind of surprising that students in the Sports Management program seem to be indifferent on the event. Therefore, he poses this question in the column, “The 2018 Winter Olympics are now only just over two years away. However, who knows which city and country will host it next?”

Sport Finance students present to Minnesota United FC on ticket pricing

December 16, 2015

Kin 5421 students and instructor Yuhei Inoue, Ph.D., with Minnesota United FC representatives, Joe Dettlaff, account executive; Sean Sittnick, senior director of ticket sales; Allie Emch, senior account executive; and James Horton, account executive.

Master’s students in KIN 5421 Sport Finance taught by assistant professor Yuhei Inoue, Ph.D., presented their final project in front of Minnesota United FC marketing leaders. Founded in 2010, Minnesota United FC is the state’s new professional soccer organization.

Minnesota United FC faces challenges to determine ticket prices that will support their transition to Major League Soccer in 2017 and their move to a new stadium in 2018, while meeting the demands of the local market. Earlier this semester, Mr. Todd Abramson, the club’s CEO, delivered a guest lecture to Dr. Inoue’s students about these challenges facing his club in the coming seasons.

Applying classroom knowledge to this real-world problem within the sport industry, the students worked throughout the semester to develop recommendations for Minnesota United FC’s ticket prices for the 2016 and 2017 seasons.

For their final presentation, “Minnesota United FC – Ticketing Pricing Project,” students compared pricing structures of sport organizations nationwide by considering their home venues, fan bases, team performance, and local competition. Based on the benchmarking and review of academic research, the students presented their recommendations for the ticket prices in the next two seasons to Minnesota United FC’s representatives.

Mr. Sean Sittnick, the club’s Senior Director of Ticket Sales, and his colleagues provided feedback and selected the presentation that provided the most persuasive recommendations.

HSCL will participate in new study on effects of yoga on Parkinson’s disease

December 2, 2015

A new study in the School of Nursing on the effects of yoga on Parkinson’s disease patients has a School of Kinesiology connection.

The study is intended to discover whether yoga could be an effective complementary option to medications that are often prescribed for Parkinson’s disease, and to determine if yoga may help to reduce motor complications and stress levels associated with Parkinson’s disease. The School’s Human Sensorimotor Control Laboratory (HSCL), directed by Juergen Konczak, Ph.D., will perform the necessary movement assessment on all participants before the study begins, at six weeks, and after it’s completed. Participants will be tested for range of motion during gait and postural stability (balance) when standing and walking.

Inoue publishes in Nonprofit Management & Leadership

November 24, 2015

Yuhei Inoue, Ph.D., has published a paper, “Event-Related Attributes Affecting Donation Intention of Special Event Attendees,” in Nonprofit Management & Leadership. The article examines how a special event, which integrates the support of a cause with a leisure activity, may attract a broad range of donors. Attendees of a professional golf tournament operating as a special event to support a cause were surveyed to identify the event-related attributes that affected attendees’ intention to donate to the cause. The full citation is: Inoue, Y. (2015). Event-related attributes affecting donation intention of special event attendees: A case study. Nonprofit Management & Leadership. Advance online publication.

Read the full article here.

China Champions acclimate to U.S. education, culture with help of volunteers

November 18, 2015

The U of M’s China Champions Program, a year-long educational and cultural immersion experience administered through the School of Kinesiology, is in its second successful year, and program coordinators are continually working to enhance participants’ time here. The eight Chinese Olympic athletes and coach who arrived this month will be given more practical experiences to ease their transition, and time with one-on-one volunteers who will help them with language skills and introduce them to U.S. culture –including a Thanksgiving turkey dinner. Read the Minnesota Daily story here.

LaVoi featured on CBS

November 17, 2015

Nicole M. LaVoi, Ph.D., associate director of the Tucker Center and faculty in the School of Kinesiology, is quoted in a recent article for CBS online, “As Competition Rises, Team Sports Decline But Traveling Teams Soar”

LaVoi offers a perspective on the dramatic decline in organized youth sports participation due to club teams by posing these questions: “Should it be to serve the interests of a few? Or should the purpose of youth sport be health, wellness, and healthy development for all kids?”

Stoffregen’s research on digital motion sickness featured in New York Times, Tech Times, and Minnesota Daily

November 17, 2015

The work of Affordance Perception-Action Laboratory (APAL) director and kinesiology professor Thomas Stoffregen, Ph.D., has been cited in three publications today, from the prestigious New York Times to the Minnesota Daily.

The New York Times article (online and print) titled Feeling Woozy? It May Be Cyber Sickness discusses the growing prevalence of digital motion sickness, or cyber sickness, which causes a person viewing digital moving content to feel nauseous, faint or light-headed. In the article, Stoffregen points out that the more realistic the content, the more likely the viewer is to get sick, and several of his research articles and findings are cited throughout the story.

In the online Tech Times, the article Feeling Dizzy While Scrolling Your Smartphone? It Could Be Cybersickness focuses on how digital motion sickness can affect people using cellphones or watching fast-action films. Stoffregen’s research on the relationship between motion sickness and its higher incidence in women as well as in people with a medical history of concussion or migraines and Type A personalities is cited.

And in the Minnesota Daily, Stoffregen and his research were featured in the article Virtual Reality Needs Tweaks about the Oculus Rift, a motion-sensing headset that creates an interactive gaming world. Stoffregen has shown in studies that the Rift’s technology can cause motion sickness, particularly in women.

Gao featured in MN Daily on research in exergaming

November 12, 2015

GaoZan-2015 Physical Activity Epidemiology Laboratory (PAEL) director and assistant professor, Zan Gao, Ph.D., was recently profiled in the MN Daily feature news story, “Kids could gain from gaming.”

The feature story discusses Gao’s research on exergaming, which is the use of video games to promote cognitive and physical activity.

In his most recent study, he has been working with elementary school students from north Minneapolis’ Loring Community School, in order to observe how playing Wii and Xbox games affect children between the ages of 4 and 6.

His current study along with a study conducted this past spring, was made possible by a $50,000 seed grant from the University’s Obesity Prevention Center. Gao hopes to expand the project through a federal grant from the National Institutes of Health in 2016.

Gao is quoted as saying, “Exergaming is fun in nature.” He continues, “That fun component can motivate an individual to change their behavior.”

Read the full article.

Dengel presents at American Heart Association Scientific Sessions

November 10, 2015

Donald R. Dengel, Ph.D., professor of kinesiology and director of the Laboratory of Integrative Human Physiology, gave two presentations at the American Heart Association 2015 Scientific Sessions DengelD-2005 on November 7-11 in Orlando, FL. The first presentation was titled “Vascular Function in Leukemia Survivors After Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation.” The second presentation, titled “Optimal Gender Specific Physical Activity Programs in the School System,” was part of an invited symposium on Gender Specific Issues In Physical Activity: Childhood Through Cardiac Rehabilitation.

Kinesiology alum Kate Bucknam receives 2014-15 NCAA Student-Athlete Sportsmanship Award

November 9, 2015

School of Kinesiology alumnus Kate Bucknam (B.S., 2015) has received a 2014-15 NCAA Student-Athlete Sportsmanship Award from the NCAA Committee on Sportsmanship and Ethical Conduct.

Bucknam, who was a co-captain of the Gopher women’s cross country team, was competing for the first time in the 2014 NCAA Division I Women’s Cross Country Championships when she noticed a fellow runner, Baylor University freshman Annie Dunlap, stumbling as she approached the finish line. Bucknam and a teammate of Dunlap assisted her across the finish line, and Bucknam ended the race as Minnesota’s sixth runner. Following the season, she was awarded the U of M’s Big Ten Sportsmanship Award and was the recipient of an Outstanding Sportsmanship Award from the Big Ten.

The Kinesiology major graduated last spring and is currently attending graduate school at Lipscomb University.

CEHD News Kinesiology

CEHD News Kinesiology