Graduate Student Bios
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Jocelyn Blouin Jocelyn’s research aims to understand health behaviour self-regulation to promote healthy lifestyles, physical activity adherence, and management of chronic health conditions. Her dissertation research is focused on social and psychological factors involved in adults’ decisions to engage in behavioural strategies, including physical activity, to manage chronic pain and live well. Her research has been funded by a Canadian Tri-Council Doctoral Fellowship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC). |
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Evan Boechler Evan's research focuses on Indigenous wellness and fostering positive movement opportunities for Indigenous children and youth in Northern Saskatchewan communities. For more information, contact evan.boechler@usask.ca |
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Matthew Chapelski Matthew’s research focuses on the improving health of children with congenital heart disease. More specifically, he is developing an intervention to reduce health inequalities between children with congenital heart disease and their typically developing peers. |
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Abimbola Eke Abimbola Eke’s research focuses on investigating girl and women athletes’ body image, body self-compassion, and performance in sport. More specifically, Abimbola’s research is centered around exploring the identities of visible ethnic minority girl athletes, as well as their body-related sport experiences and performance perceptions in Canada. |
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Zahra Ghafouri My research project involves assessing the role of metabolic and hormonal factors in bone strength and development in children with type 1 diabetes. One primary goal is to reduce the fracture risk in children with type 1 diabetes, who generally sustain bone strength development deficits during their early childhood. |
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Bailey Gitzel My research focuses on physical activity messaging and promotion, involving identifying and reducing psychological barriers to movement. For more information regarding my goals and current research activity, feel free to contact me at bailey.gitzel@usask.ca. |
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Emmarie Racine Hallin I am passionate about athletes' long term success after sustaining a concussion. My research focuses on mild traumatic brain injuries (mTBI) and investigating undetected performance deficits athletes may experience years after sustaining a concussion. I am an Certified Athletic Therapist and love to help athletes manage all types of injuries, not just concussions! My research is funded by Canadian Graduate Scholarship-Masters (CIHR) and Mitacs to create and implement a protocol for assessing and rehabilitating underlying performance deficits at Craven Sport Services. For more information contact me at emmarie.racine.hallin@usask.ca or www.linkedin.com/in/emmarie-racine-hallin |
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Aaron Hidalgo-Mazzei Aaron is interested in research in the area of growth and development. More specifically youth sport and talent identification. As a current athlete with the Huskies men’s soccer team, Aaron wants to implement his experiences in sport into his research. |
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Tobias Hyrich-Krueger Tobias Hyrich-Krueger is passionate about sports participation and how this can relate to physical activity later in life. He hopes that through increasing his knowledge in the area, he can one day help provide recommendations to sports governing bodies and policy makers. Tobias’ research focus will be on how sport participation can affect physical activity in adulthood. |
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Karissa Johnson My research focuses on supporting women athletes thriving through self-compassion, throughout their competitive sport career. I am passionate about creating positive sport experiences for young women athletes. For more information contact me at k.johnson@usask.ca. |
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Shara Johnson Healthy aging and management of chronic conditions Guiding Principles of Research: Creating impactFostering collaboration Hometown: St. Catherine, Jamaica Shara Johnson’s research focuses on cardiovascular health in Indigenous peoples. Specifically, Shara will use a community-based participatory research approach to ethically and authentically examine sex and gender-specific relationships between cultural connectedness and cardiovascular health measures in Indigenous peoples. |
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M. Rafique Khan Rafique’s research interests focuses on the effect of isometric handgrip training on brachial artery vascular (endothelial) function in children and emerging adults with congenital heart disease (CHD). Patients with CHD exhibit brachial artery endothelial dysfunction, which is associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease. While patients with CHD experience general exercise intolerance, handgrip training is a potential exercise therapy that requires less effort and is known to improve brachial artery endothelial function. However, less is known about the effects in patients with CHD. |
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Aryan (Ian) Kurniawan My research focuses on the neuromuscular effects of unilateral strength training on the untrained, opposite limb. Specifically, I am interested in investigating if training one limb can prevent the expected declines in strength and muscle in an opposite, immobilized limb. This research has implications as a novel rehabilitation strategy after unilateral injury or impairment. |
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Taylor Leonhardt My research focuses on identifying nutritional strategies for active child and youth that support healthy growth and development. More specifically, we are investigating the effects of various post-exercise protein sources on body composition, bone properties, and strength in adolescent athletes. |
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Melissa Leonzio Melissa Leonzio’s research focuses on women’s health and body image in aesthetic and non aesthetic sports. |
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Jackson Lordall My dissertation research is examining the influence of task-, individual-, and environment-based characteristics on walking balance and performance in different real-world settings. For more information about my research, contact me at Jackson.Lordall@usask.ca |
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Adam Luchkanych My research focuses on cerebral blood flow regulation. Working in collaboration with the Western College of Veterinary Medicine, we combine animal studies and human trials which provides us with a unique opportunity to explore potential underlying mechanisms regulating the cerebrovascular responses we observe in humans. We make use of myography experiments in animal models to test vascular control mechanisms and transcranial doppler ultrasound to observe cerebrovascular responses in both animal models and humans. In the bigger picture, findings from these studies could provide valuable evidence to better understanding diseases of brain and their possible link to vascular dysfunction. |
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Kevin Mageto Kevin Mageto’s research interests include physical activity and chronic disease, physical activity in children and youth, rural and remote physical activity, and Indigenous wellness. Specifically, Kevin aspires to look at how physical activity affects chronic diseases in the context of culture and the built environment. Kevin is also involved in the Indigenous Youth Mentorship Program where he strives to promote wellness in Indigenous youth across Saskatchewan and Canada. |
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Nisha Mainra Nisha recently finished a Bachelors in Kinesiology degree at UBC this past June and came to Saskatoon to further pursue her interest in exercise physiology and Indigenous health. Using a collaborative and wholistic approach, Nisha wishes to look at the many ways we can bridge the gap in health inequities between communities. |
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Mackenzie Marchant Mackenzie's research focuses on adult exercise psychology, specifically, the self-regulation of exercise behaviour. Guided by theories of health behaviour, Mackenzie’s research aims to understand the psychosocial factors involved in self-regulating exercise behaviour during challenging times. |
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Victor Maduabuchi Onwukwe Victor M. Onwukwe, who has been trained on Sports Psychology and Motor Fitness Test by the University of Muenster, Institute of Sport and Exercise Science, Germany will be working on evaluating the effectiveness of whole-egg protein powder supplementation compared to whey protein powder supplementation in individuals involved in exercise training at the University of Saskatchewan, Canada. More specifically, Victor’s research aims to determine whether whole-egg protein powder will be more effective than whey protein powder for increasing lean tissue mass and muscular strength in resistance trained individuals. |
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Ali Rezaei Ali's research focuses on balance control, fall prevention, and bone fracture prevention in children with type 1 diabetes, who are at a higher risk of bone fractures. More specifically, Ali is comparing the balance abilities of children with type 1 diabetes to those of their healthy peers in order to investigate balance impairments. Additionally, Ali aims to design a rehabilitation protocol with the goal of improving balance and preventing falls and subsequent bone fractures in this population. |
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Keely Shaw Keely Shaw’s research focuses exercise physiology and, more specifically, sport nutrition. Keely has a particular interest in nutrition for high performance athletes, particularly as it relates to understudied populations such as women, Paralympic, and Masters athletes |
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Kristina Sobolewski Kristina’s research focuses on improving children and youth’s physical activity behaviours, learning outcomes, and experiences by influencing teachers’ own health and wellbeing using a behaviour change intervention. Kristina’s passion is providing additional physical activity opportunities to children and youth in school settings as well as developing teachers’ confidence and competence to implement physical activity in their classrooms. Kristina can be contacted at k.sobolewski@usask.ca |
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Megan Tomyn I finished my kinesiology undergrad degree in the spring of 2023 and now in my first year of studies in my masters. I want to look more into what promoters physical activity in Indigenous communities. |
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Mandy Walters Research Areas: Reducing Falls and Fall Risks in the Dementia Population Through Exercise and will the formation of online programming during COVID-19 provide benefits to improve quality of life. |
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Doris Wesaquate Doris Wesaquate is in her first year of study. She wants to understand the impact of chronic stress on First Nation women’s health as an association to parental attendance at Indian Residential School. The focus is on those factors that may influence mental health and chronic disease. |
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Yuwen Zheng My research primarily focuses on musculoskeletal development in children. I am currently working with children with type 1 diabetes and looking at the growth and development in bone and muscle. Our lab images proximal limbs for children with CTs and measures muscle function with force plate. My PhD project aims to explore the potential difference in growth of the bone structure and strength between children with and without type 1 diabetes. |