Seven new faculty members join the Faculty of Health at 91亚色 this fall, with appointments in Kinesiology & Health Science, Psychology, Nursing and the School of Health Policy & Management.

Dean Paul McDonald welcomed the new faculty members to the University.

鈥淲e are delighted to welcome outstanding new faculty members this year who, along with our existing faculty, staff and students, will enable us to think of innovative ways of fulfilling our mission to improve health and health care through world-class education, creative research and strategic partnerships,鈥� he said.

Agn猫s Berthelot-Raffard

Agn猫s Berthelot-Raffard joins 91亚色 as an assistant professor of critical disability studies and Health Studies in the School of Health Policy & Management. She earned her PhD from Pantheon-Sorbonne and Universit茅 de Montr茅al. Her PhD focuses on informal caregiving in public health, ageing and disability studies perspectives. Her research expertise is in the areas Black disability studies/Black health studies. She is interested in understanding the ways in which racism impacts all the dimensions of health. She studies how racial injustices are grounded in the Canadian public health system as a historical legacy of slavery and colonialism. Currently, she is leading one research on Black women鈥檚 health and another one on the socio-determinants of racialized students鈥� mental health.

Before joining 91亚色, she served as coordinator of the research ethics committee for the Health and Social Services Agency of Montreal. She taught bioethics, medical ethics for students enrolled in philosophy and medicine programs. She wrote a handbook in bioethics for the University of Sudbury. She was a lecturer in public health ethics for the community medicine practicum offered by the Direction de Sant茅 publique de Montr茅al. She was also an assistant professor in feminist and gender studies at the University of Ottawa.

Amanda De Lisio

Amanda De Lisio is an assistant professor of physical culture, policy and sustainable development in the School of Kinesiology and Health Science. She is also affiliated with the City Institute at 91亚色. Her research is focused on development and displacement in FIFA and Olympic host cities. Her Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC)-funded dissertation examined the impact of event urbanism in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, particularly on women involved in informal, precarious labour. Prior to 91亚色, she taught classes on urban geography, political economy, and the sociology of health and physical culture at the University of Toronto (2015-20) and held a postdoctoral fellowship at Bournemouth University (2016-18) as well as Brock University (2018-20). Her work has been funded by the Economic and Social Research Council in England, Mitacs Canada and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and published in academic and popular presses in English and Portuguese.

Heather Prime

Dr. Heather Prime joins the Department of Psychology at 91亚色, following a CIHR-funded postdoctoral fellowship at the Offord Centre for Child Studies, McMaster University. She received her PhD in school and clinical child psychology from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education/University of Toronto. Dr. Prime鈥檚 research program uses a family-based approach to understanding and supporting socio-emotional and cognitive development in young children, with a focus on family interactions and relationships. Dr. Prime is registered with the College of Psychologists of Ontario and she is a practicing clinical psychologist in the Greater Toronto Area, with expertise in working with the family unit to support children鈥檚 mental health and well-being. As a clinical psychologist, she is committed to using her clinical training to guide her research, and she emphasizes clinical utility in her research endeavours.

The  (NSERC) supports ongoing programs of research with long-term goals rather than a single short-term project or collection of projects. These grants recognize the creativity and innovation that are at the heart of all research advances.

A total of 50 Discovery Grants were awarded in June, totalling $8,904,123. This amount includes the NSERC Research Tools and Instruments (RTI) program, which provides the primary avenue for university researchers in the natural sciences and engineering to obtain up to $150,000 in support for research tools and instruments.

Discovery Grants were awarded to:

• Robert Allison (Lassonde),
• Constadinos Armenakis (Lassonde),
• Mark Bayfield (Science),
• Ellen Bialystock (Health),
• Nassim Bozorgnia (Science),
• Satinder Brar (Lassonde),
• Jennifer Chen (Science),
• Arthur Cheng (Health),
• Taylor Cleworth (Health),
• Claire David (Science),
• Hany Farag (Lassonde),
• Marina Freire-Gormaly (Lassonde),
• Edward Furman (Science),
• Dasantila Golemi-Kotra (Science),
• Deborah Harris (Science),
• Laurence Harris (Centre for Vision Research),
• Jimmy Huang (Liberal Arts & Professional Studies),
• Jaclyn Hurley (Health), Cuiying Jian (Lassonde),
• Zhen Ming Jiang (Lassonde),
• Shooka Karimpour Ghannadi (Lassonde),
• Scott Kelly (Science),
• Peter Kohler (Health),
• Nikola Kovinich (Science),
• Anantharaman Kumarakrishnan (Science),
• Peter Lian (Lassonde), Neal Madras (Science),
• Ozzy Mermut (Science), Laurence Packer (Science),
• Jean-Paul Paluzzi (Science), Chun Peng (Science),
• Rebecca Pillai Riddell (Health),
• Simone Pisana (Lassonde),
• Pouya Rezai (Lassonde),
• Emilie Roudier (Health),
• Sapna Sharma (Science),
• Gunho Sohn (Lassonde),
• Neil Tandon (Lassonde),
• Sean Tulin (Science),
• Trevor VandenBoer (Science),
• Natalija Vlajic (Lassonde),
• Song Wang (Lassonde),
• Karl White (Science),
• Magdalena Wojtowicz (Health)
• Amro Zayed (Science).

Recipients of the RTI awards are:

• Satinder Brar (Lassonde),
• Gerd Grau (Lassonde),
• David Hood (Health)
• Sergey Krylov (Science).

For a full list of these grant recipients, their projects and their awards, visit .

In addition to these grants, the NSERC Discovery Accelerator Supplement Awards (DAS) were also announced, with $360,000 awarded to 91亚色 research projects. These supplement awards aim to provide substantial additional resources to accelerate progress and maximize the impact of outstanding research programs and are valued at $120,000 over three years.

Recipients of the DAS grants are: Jennifer Chen (Science), Zehn Ming Jiang (Lassonde) and Amro Zayed (Science).

For a full list of these grant recipients and their projects, visit .

For more information on the NSERC Discovery Grants funding announcement, visit the media release .

Provided by .

Funding for the Rapid Research Funding projects was June 25.

鈥淲e are delighted to learn of CIHR鈥檚 support for three timely projects from the Faculty of Health related to the 2019 novel coronavirus outbreak,鈥� said Amir Asif, vice-president Research & Innovation. 鈥�91亚色 is committed to ensuring that our research, scholarship and creative activities are focused on the needs of the communities and on the complex challenges facing our society. We are very pleased to be a strong participant in the rapid research response to contribute to global efforts to contain the outbreak.鈥�

Shayna Rosenbaum, professor and 91亚色 Research Chair in Cognitive Neuroscience of Memory in the Faculty of Health鈥檚 Department of Psychology, has been awarded more than $120,000 to study biases in decision-making and ways to change decisions in order to protect ourselves and others from COVID-19 as the economy reopens. People have a strong tendency to make choices that lead to immediate and certain rewards. Rosenbaum and co-principal investigator Donna Rose Addis, Canada 150 Research Chair in Cognitive Neuroscience of Memory and Aging and senior scientist at Baycrest鈥檚 Rotman Research Institute, will track decision-making related to people鈥檚 willingness to use protective measures and train people to overcome biased decision-making by imagining personal scenarios.

Faculty of Science Distinguished Research Professor Jianhong Wu, Canada Research Chair in Industrial and Applied Mathematics, will also contribute to the project, along with co-applicants from other institutions. Researchers will study decision-making in a pool of over 2.8 million frontline workers who receive workplace training in COVID-19 health and safety measures. Findings will help inform the Public Health Agency of Canada on when and how to safely lift restrictions on everyday activities.

Tarra Penney, assistant professor in the Global Health Program and School of Kinesiology and Health Science, and Mary Wiktorowicz, professor in the School of Health Policy and Management in 91亚色鈥檚 Faculty of Health and Dahdaleh Institute for Global Health Research, will receive $446,912 to evaluate the governance of wildlife markets in countries where zoonotic epidemics and pandemics emerged, including China and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. A multi-disciplinary team of investigators including Adrian Viens, Cary Wu, James Orbinski, Peter Tsasis and Shital Desai of 91亚色, co-investigators H茅l猫ne Carabin and C茅cile Aenishaenslin of Universit茅 de Montr茅al and Kerry Bowman of University of Toronto and country collaborators will evaluate the governance gap by integrating an institutional, legal and systems analysis of how wildlife markets intersect with livelihoods, cultural practices and food security. The findings will inform international, national and local governance, policy and implementation. 

A team co-led by Michael Rotondi, associate professor in the School of Kinesiology & Health Science, Janet Smylie, a M茅tis physician, professor and research chair at St. Michael鈥檚 Hospital and University of Toronto, and Cheryllee Bourgeois, a Cree/M茅tis midwife at Seventh Generation Midwives Toronto, will receive $395,460 to estimate the rate of COVID-19 transmission for Indigenous Peoples in cities. Their team will use information from the Our Health Counts studies in Toronto, London and Thunder Bay, population-based health research co-led by Indigenous communities using respondent-driven sampling and social networks. The team will develop new statistical methods to estimate the transmission rate and risk factors for COVID-19 in these communities by linking the Our Health Counts studies to the provincial COVID-19 database at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES).

Provided by .

The event attracted 172 registrants and featured eight speakers, as well as 62 abstract submissions, from which eight  trainee awards were jury-selected for oral presentations. The 30-minute presentations featured research on muscle, heart, cardiovascular control and mitochondria, the powerhouse of the cell.

Imed Gallouzi (biochemistry, McGill University) spoke about the role of mRNA stability in affecting muscle structure and function, while Scot Kimball (physiology, Penn State University) discussed the signaling pathways and mechanisms through which amino acids regulate muscle protein synthesis. From the University of Michigan, Jacob Haus described novel protein modifications that contribute to diabetic complications in muscle, while Sunita Mathur (physical therapy, University of Toronto) described her work on skeletal muscle physiological assessment techniques aimed at improving the health of people suffering from profound muscle atrophy and weakness. Kimberly Dunham-Snary, (medicine, Queen鈥檚 University) shared her studies of mitochondrial biology, specifically, how genetic and structural changes to mitochondria alter cell function.

Sherry Grace (kinesiology and health science, 91亚色) began a discussion on the cardiovascular system by highlighting the importance of knowledge translation as applied to cardiac rehabilitation programs for individuals post-heart attack. Philip Millar (human health and nutritional sciences, University of Guelph) described his understanding of the mechanisms that regulate the sympathetic control of blood flow and blood pressure at rest and during exercise. Finally, Richard Hughson (kinesiology, University of Waterloo) provided a compelling story about how astronauts regulate their cardiovascular systems during exercise while travelling in the microgravity conditions within the International Space Station.

Between faculty presentations, industry representatives from Nikon (Sally Miller) and Beckman Coulter (Natalia Ferdianina) shared images and knowledge regarding their most recent microscope and flow cytometry instrumentation.

The event ran with the help of 91亚色鈥檚 Learning and Technology Services crew of Grant McNair and Bert Imai, and organizers expressed thanks to MHRC members Professors Ali Abdul-Sater, Arthur Cheng, Heather Edgell and graduate student Heather Johnston who chaired the scientific sessions seamlessly.

The event was sponsored by the Faculty of Health and benefitted also from industry support for the sponsoring of student awards.

For a list of student award winners, and for more information on the event, visit .

Provided by .

鈥淭here was no lab component to the course when I first came to 91亚色,鈥� said Richardson, an associate professor in the School of Kinesiology and Health Science in the Faculty of Health, 鈥渟o with the help of a Faculty of Health grant, I was able to develop a virtual dissection lab.鈥�

A site license provides 91亚色 students with free access to a suite of Primal Pictures dissection software through the University libraries, so the students can use a computer touchpad or mouse to locate and dissect structures such as brains or kidneys, rather than just looking at textbook drawings and photos.

鈥淚 give them a list of structures and it鈥檚 very similar to a physical lab,鈥� Richardson said. 鈥淓veryone also greatly appreciates the ability to do it on their own time; it translates to excellent accessibility. I record all of my lectures, too. Many of our students commute or have jobs, so I want to do what I can to make learning as easy as possible.鈥�

Richardson鈥檚 second-year introductory anatomy students have also benefited from the software. Renovations to the Farquharson Life Sciences Building on the Keele Campus provided the opportunity to redesign the human anatomy laboratories with federal funds; the labs now include hook-ups for e-learning. Each lab has three large video screens connected to two cameras and a computer, allowing lab demonstrators to ensure that all students in the lab can see demonstrations of dissections clearly.

鈥淭he teaching assistants can project dissections or structures onto the screens, and they can also pull up virtual dissections or diagrams,鈥� Richardson said. 鈥淚t makes demonstrations better and more efficient. Instead of showing the dissection to each group of three to four students, the Teaching Assistant (TA) can walk through a virtual human or animal dissection of a particular structure and let the students work on animal specimens afterward.

鈥淚n the past, the TA would have to demonstrate to each group individually on the lab table, and it wasn鈥檛 always easy to see if 20 students were crowded around. It has made a huge difference; it makes everything we do in the lab more effective.鈥�

Richardson says it also helps build a sense of community among the students in the lab section, which 鈥渋s nice in a course with 900 people.鈥�

The students can also use the software to review and practise what they have learned in the lab, which is helpful in preparing for exams.

Richardson says the software has other components, so it is also applicable to students in physiology courses who use it to see how various muscles work during specific movements or activities.

She is delighted to be able to add this hands-on, e-learning component to her courses.

鈥淚鈥檝e always learned anatomy with my hands,鈥� she said. 鈥淚 wanted students to have an experiential component to their studies so they could apply the theories they learn in class.鈥�

By Elaine Smith, special contributing writer to Innovatus

Provided by .

Frontline workers who deal with people in poverty who are the victims of trauma, in Toronto and globally, now have a new online resource, thanks to a group of students 鈥� including three Faculty of Health undergraduates 鈥� who took part in one of 91亚色鈥檚 new (C4) courses, an interdisciplinary capstone course model launched last fall.

In partnership with the Yonge Street Mission, the C4 students from various disciplines worked together to answer a key question: how can understanding experiential trauma and recovery help frontline workers understand the effects of poverty on the brain? To answer that question, the students created a website that provides frontline workers with up-to-date information about root causes (e.g., racialization, migration), their effects (e.g., biological or neurological problems), treatment approaches, public policy and societal concerns. The website was created as a way to assist them in their day-to-day interactions with people who have experienced trauma. The students hope it will become a place where frontline workers from around the world can come together to share problems and concerns.

鈥淲e wanted something accessible and engaging and we thought that this was a way to reach frontline workers in Toronto and elsewhere,鈥� said Kim Dadgarian, a fourth-year double major student in psychology and law and society, who was the team leader for the C4 project.

Melding as a team, deciding on a goal and sharing the responsibilities required a lot of time and effort from all eight team members, including Dadgarian, fellow psychology student Emma Bennett and kinesiology student Yitian Tang. They gathered and collated information on the neurological impact of trauma and stress created through the experience of poverty and designed and created a website to make this information accessible. They met weekly as a team and also met monthly with their mentor, a manager at the Yonge Street Mission. They also sought the guidance of the C4 creators and their professors. The information they gathered for the website comes from both scholarly journals and interviews with scholars in the field, health-care professionals, counsellors and other frontline workers.

The team initially expected the product to be focused solely on the Yonge Street Mission, but they broadened their scope to make the contents relevant to other organizations that deal with victims of trauma.

Dadgarian, Bennett and Tang are among only a handful of Faculty of Health students who took part in the new C4 program, which is an interdisciplinary approach to the traditional capstone course. The trio were 鈥渃utting edge participants as part of this cross-campus pilot project,鈥� said Michael Boni, an assistant professor in the School of Kinesiology and Health Science, who supervised a participating student.

The students and the supervising faculty 鈥� Boni and Julie Conder of psychology 鈥� say they are all enthusiastic about C4 and the opportunities the program provided.

鈥淲hat I鈥檝e heard over the years from students is that they want a way to connect their academics with the community,鈥� said Boni. 鈥淐4 offers the opportunity for exposure, experience and ties to the community. It allows the students to envision what they can do with their expertise. The feedback I鈥檝e been getting is that it has been eye-opening and that the students have grown in ways they never expected.鈥�

Conder is also pleased to see her students getting hands-on community experience.

鈥淚 love the idea of the students going out and solving a problem that has no prescribed outcome,鈥� Conder said. 鈥淎s members of a multidisciplinary team, they get to showcase their unique skills from their discipline and use them in a real-world setting, solving an actual problem.

鈥淓xperiences of this nature are exactly like what they鈥檒l be doing when they enter the working world,鈥� added Conder. 鈥淵ou may try something and see it fail, so you need to try another approach. There will be times when people won鈥檛 like what you鈥檙e doing, so you鈥檒l have to figure out how to deal with it and make changes.鈥�

Dadgarian is delighted by her C4 experience.

鈥淲e have to be independent, but we also have to work as part of a team,鈥� Dadgarian said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 our project and it鈥檚 our responsibility to figure things out. Working with people from different fields also means we need to be sure we鈥檙e on the same page.鈥�

By Elaine Smith, special contributing writer to Innovatus

鈥淚t is our great pleasure to acknowledge this year鈥檚 President鈥檚 Award winners: Professors Christopher Perry, Theodore Noseworthy, Debra Pepler and Eric Hessels,鈥� said President and Vice-Chancellor Rhonda L. Lenton. 鈥淎ll four of these researchers are deeply committed to the University鈥檚 mission and vision to advance academic and research excellence for the benefit of all. At the same time, they are helping to establish 91亚色 among the country鈥檚 leading research-intensive universities through their visionary research, leadership and mentorship.鈥�

To see this year鈥檚 booklet, which showcases all of the researchers, visit the .

鈥淭his year, over 70 researchers and academics were acknowledged across all Faculties and professional schools for their outstanding contributions in 2019. We wish to extend our warmest congratulations and best wishes to all for their continued success,鈥� said Interim Vice President Research & Innovation Rui Wang.

The President鈥檚 Research Awards

President鈥檚 Emerging Research Leadership (PERLA) Award 2020

Christopher Perry, School of Kinesiology and Health Science, Faculty of Health, was selected for this award (Engineering, Science, Technology, Health and Biomedicine Cluster), as a reflection of his outstanding leadership in and contribution to the fields of exercise physiology, metabolism and skeletal muscle health.

Since 2012, when he came to 91亚色, Perry has contributed significantly to the success of the University, both internally and externally. He established the only human muscle biopsy lab at 91亚色, where he investigates the basic cellular mechanisms of muscle fitness and applies these discoveries toward developing novel therapies to treat muscle weakness disorders.

In 2016, he was elected to serve as a Director Academic for the Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology, Canada鈥檚 major authority in exercise science and prescription. This society focuses on integrating state-of-the-art research into best practice. It is comprised of professionals interested and involved in the scientific study of exercise physiology, exercise biochemistry, fitness and health.

Perry was the recipient of the 2017 Faculty of Health Research Award (early career). He has also received multiple internal and external awards, including funding from the Canada Foundation for Innovation, the Ontario Research Fund, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the James H. Cummings Foundation, the Rare Disease Foundation and industry funding.

Theodore Noseworthy, Schulich School of Business, was chosen for this award (Social Science, Art & Design, Humanities, Business, Law and Education Cluster), for his extraordinary leadership and contribution to the fields of marketing and consumer studies.

As the Canada Research Chair in Entrepreneurial Innovation and the Public Good, he develops insights that inform business and policy-makers about the benefits of properly communicated innovation and the potential costs to susceptible consumers and society. He examines how marketers can better communicate product and service innovations to maximize adoption and awareness. This work focuses on new product design and innovation, as well as product categorization, category ambiguity and visual processing.

In 2012, Noseworthy was appointed Scientific Director of the NOESIS: Innovation, Design, and Consumption Laboratory, a world-class behavioural lab at Schulich to extend his primary research programs. The NOESIS lab is intended to foster innovative research into consumption, consumer behaviour and design. Noseworthy has developed this lab with the specific goal of conducting high quality research, training skilled personnel and facilitating knowledge mobilization.

Broadly speaking, Noseworthy鈥檚 research program is designed to help combat Canada鈥檚 innovation deficit by helping the private sector transfer knowledge into commercialized products and services to grow the economy.

President鈥檚 Research Impact (PRIA) Award 2020

Debra Pepler, Department of Psychology, Faculty of Health, was selected for this award for her innovative contributions to psychology and mental health in the areas of bullying, aggression and violence, especially among marginalized children, youth and families. In recognition of these contributions, Pepler was named an Officer of the Order of Canada by the Governor General.

She is the only psychologist recognized by the Canadian Psychological Association for Distinguished Contributions to both Psychology as a Science and Public or Community Service.

Pepler received a Network of Centres of Excellence grant to establish PREVNet 鈥� Promoting Relationships and Eliminating Violence Network, funded from 2006-2019. She built this interdisciplinary network with her former PhD student Wendy Craig (Queen鈥檚 University), with over 120 researchers, 150 graduate students and 62 national organizations. PREVNet鈥檚 researchers and partners co-created over 150 resources for bullying prevention and healthy relationships. PREVNet was the culmination of Pepler鈥檚 decades of research linking science with practice and public policy for children鈥檚 healthy development and healthy relationships.

Pepler鈥檚 research embedded in clinical and community settings has real impact on the lives of children, youth, and families. She has a strong publication record, having written or co-edited 10 books, and more than 200 journal articles, chapters, and reports. In 2007, Pepler was recognized as a Distinguished Research Professor by 91亚色 for her ground-breaking research.

President鈥檚 Research Excellence (PREA) Award 2020

Eric Hessels, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Faculty of Science, was chosen for his award (Engineering, Science, Technology, Health and Biomedicine Cluster), for his exceptional contribution to atomic, molecular and optical physics.

Hessels, 91亚色 Research Chair in Atomic Physics and a 91亚色 Distinguished Research Professor, has led numerous research projects that have far-reaching consequences for the understanding of the laws of physics. He is leading a collaboration whose goal it is to use ultra precise measurements of the electron to study one of the fundamental unresolved questions of physics.

In 2019, Hessels led a study published in the esteemed journal Science, which found a new measurement for the size of proton at just under one trillionth of a millimetre. The study confirmed the 2010 finding that the proton is smaller than previously believed.

The year before, Hessels led a team that achieved the most precise measurement of the fine structure of helium ever recorded. His researchers had been working on this for eight years. Hessels is now leading a collaboration (EDMcubed) that is attempting to measure the shape of the electron 鈥� or, more specifically, whether its charge is evenly distributed. This measurement will try to shed light on one of the fundamental mysteries of physics: why the universe is made entirely of matter (electrons,protons, etc.) and, unexpectedly, has no antimatter (anti-electrons, antiprotons, etc.).

To see this year鈥檚 booklet, visit the . To watch the new video, featuring Celia Haig-Brown, Associate Vice President Research discussing research and academic work across the University and aspiration areas for this work, visit VPRI鈥檚 .

Provided by .

TORONTO, Monday, March 30, 2020 鈥� Millions of people around the world are staying home to follow聽rules around social distancing聽as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. As many聽adjust moving from聽their聽office space to聽their聽work-from-home space, how can they prevent聽muscles and joints聽from stiffening and deteriorating?

Assistant Professor , in the School of Kinesiology and Health Science program at 91亚色, has this advice for anyone working from home: 鈥渂e sure to get up and move.鈥� As a Certified Athletic Therapist, Kinesiologist and Physiotherapist as well as a faculty member in the Faculty of Health, his clinical treatment expertise is in the field of manual and exercise therapy, focusing on neck, shoulder and back pain. He educates and mentors Athletic Therapists, Physiotherapists, and Kinesiology students.

Boni offers key insight on what our muscles, joints and back may need during the next few weeks and months, during different phases of the new norm.

Many people are adjusting to the new reality of working from home in different workspaces than they are used to.  What should people do to look after their muscles and joints during this time?

With the increased sedentary activity, people are likely sitting longer at this point in time just because they're avoiding their commute component to the going in and out of work, be it walking from the car to their office and less movement in general, that may create more stiffness in our muscles and in our joints. It's important to recognize that and to do something to counteract that. One simple strategy to counteract this, can simply be to increase your water intake, which forces your body to have to get up and go to the bathroom. This means that you're moving and getting out of a seated position. Drinking more water also helps to hydrate your muscles and joints further helping to prevent some of that stiffness.

The increasing stiffness and the stagnation of blood flow may lead you to feeling a little bit colder. If you have been sitting for a long period of time 鈥� people may recognize this by feeling聽a little bit colder 鈥� your hands and feet specifically will feel cold, that鈥檚 due to a lack of聽proper circulation to your extremities.

For those who regularly go to the gym or physiotherapy, but cannot due to social distancing now, what can we incorporate into our schedule to manage the gap?

I think it's imperative that people create a schedule for themselves to include some aerobic or cardiovascular fitness component into their daily routine. Obviously, for the person that's not used to going to the gym, it can be as simple as going for a walk.

Here are some tips:

• Create a schedule for exercise, either morning or lunchtime.
• Include a cardiovascular fitness component into your daily routine.
• If you don鈥檛 normally go to the gym, include a walk in your day, or if you do normally go to the gym, stair climbing, home seated rowing, stationary bike are good options.
• Try to get outside to do some of your conditioning outside such as riding a bike, running, walking, which can be done still while practicing the social distancing.
• For those people who are used to doing strength training, it's still important to maintain some strength and if you don't have the exercise equipment to help maintain some of that you can do a lot of body-based type of exercises. These can be simple old-fashioned calisthenic exercises like a push-up, a pull-up sit-up, body squats or lunges, if you have the ability to do that.
• Getting some form of strengthening at least three times a week to maintain the gains that you may have achieved through a gym routine is an important strategy.

Watch Professor Boni explain quick things you can do at your desk below:

How can we prevent back strain in our new work-from-home routines?

Back strain or what's known as lumbago, (low back pain) or neck and shoulder pain, is commonly seen in an office worker regardless, and perhaps more so with a person now being in a different workspace environment that your body is not accustomed to, you may find that your muscles may become a little bit more sore. To prevent this, it becomes even more important to get up physically and move out of that position.

Tips for your workspace:

• Be mindful of the setup of your workspace so that it has a 90-90-90 type of position where your hips are flexed or bent to 90 degrees, your knees are bent to 90 degrees and your elbows are bent to 90 degrees.
• The top of your computer screen should basically be at eye level.
• If you don't have that set up then you need to modify your workstation at home.
• Keep a simple roll in the small of your back to help prevent the excessive prolonged flexed position to avoid a lot of stress and strain on your intervertebral discs.
• And simply try to get up and move out of stagnant positions.

Given this pandemic is fluid and will likely have different phases, what should we know about the impact on our muscles during the different stages and how to adjust our exercise routines? 

"As we go through the phases of the pandemic our muscles and joints will actually start to adapt to the new stresses that our bodies are being placed on. That means that while you鈥檙e sitting in a new environment for the first week or two, you may start to feel those aches and pains but within the third and fourth week, your muscles may start to adjust. Your body still needs movement to occur and you must recognize the need for some kind of an exercise routine."

It's no different than the bus driver who sits all day long. Although over time the driver鈥檚 body starts to adapt and adjust, the body is being strained and the driver may just not be feeling it. Over the duration of the next few weeks, it will be important to keep a schedule for exercise. Maybe after lunch, you go for a 30-minute walk or you schedule your workout routine during the morning. It's still important to maintain that schedule so that your body comes to recognize that it's going to have some component of exercise. And during your workday, getting up out of the seated position twice an hour may help counteract some of that body stress and strain.

For people looking to use online videos or apps to exercise, what advice do you have on how they should pick the best one?

It can get very confusing for the public on what exercise they can do. It comes down to individual need. This is where a Certified Athletic Therapist, Physiotherapist or Fitness professional can really evaluate what your individual strengths and deficits that need to be worked on are, and then prescribe a specific exercise routine. If it鈥檚 cardiovascular that you need to increase in your routine, then exercises like yoga and Pilates won鈥檛 provide that so much, therefore you should be looking at more of an upbeat tempo type of exercise or video. But each person鈥檚 need is individualized and there is no one size fits all with respect to the exercise routines that are out there. Having said that, generally most people should be incorporating three key elements in their exercise routine: 1) Something that increases their heart rate, so a cardiovascular-based activity, 2) something that promotes maintenance or gain of muscle strength which may also promote bone health, and 3) exercise that improves flexibility or mobility. Varying amounts of these elements should be incorporated into an exercise routine. Find out where your need or deficits lie to create a balanced approach.

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Hood is among four finalists for this prestigious award, which recognizes graduate faculty members with a record of outstanding mentorship of graduate students under their supervision.

"The most rewarding experiences that I have had in academia involve observing the result of mentorship, guidance and support efforts that I have given to graduate students and other trainees," said Hood. "They transition from novice experimentalists to highly competent scientists who have the ability to publish and communicate science in very effective ways. And they end up with good jobs."

Known for encouraging, inspiring and supporting his students to reach their full potential, Hood's nominators praise his work to establish a learning environment that maximizes the skills and abilities of each student while also providing opportunities for collaborating on new and unexpected discoveries.

"Being a finalist for this national mentorship award is extremely rewarding and I am grateful to have been nominated," said Hood.

Hood said he uses an individualized approach to advising his trainees noting that every student is different and "cookie-cutter" approaches don鈥檛 work for everyone. He has developed a solid program of skill advancement, involving lab technical developments in biochemistry and physiology research, along with strategies that aid in the formation of verbal and illustrative communication skills. A main strategy that he deploys involves the scheduling of lab meetings that are held weekly, without fail, to hone verbal skills related to the discussion of emerging literature, as well as critical reviews of recent data acquired experimentally. This is an important part of working with graduate students, said Hood, because "we are often requested to publish reviews of the literature in our field of muscle mitochondrial adaptations to exercise."

Hood makes use of these opportunities to help develop trainee writing and researching skills as they survey the literature. This approach helps the graduate students he supervises to develop a solid foundation for the field, and enhances their CVs considerably, to make them more marketable.

An important part of the learning experience that Hood offers graduate students is the chance to participate in the Muscle Health Awareness Day (MHAD). This annual event has developed into an important local conference that caters not only to scientists and trainees in southern Ontario, but also serves to recruit colleagues from Quebec, New 91亚色 state and Michigan.

"In 2020, we will be hosting our 11th annual MHAD," said Hood. "Each year 50 to 60 graduate student posters are displayed, and trainees listen to high-level talks presented by newly emerging, as well as seasoned scientists in the field, covering topics in skeletal muscle, heart and blood vessel physiology, adaptations and disease. It鈥檚 a wonderful experience for all, but it is especially rewarding, and fully attainable because of the low cost, for young trainees who have never presented at a conference previously."

In addition to supervising graduate students, Hood is a highly accomplished researcher. His lab focuses on how mitochondria, the powerhouses of the cell, are newly made and assembled in muscle when we exercise regularly. The payback of this exercise to develop new muscle, said Hood, is an improved metabolism, accompanied by considerable health benefits. These include better metabolism of fats, less muscle fatigue (i.e. more endurance), and the maintenance of a healthy body weight.

"As we age, the beneficial effects of exercise on mitochondria can help to preserve muscle mass and to prevent the frailty and weakness that is so evident in our aging populations, affecting both men and women," said Hood. "The lab has studied the underlying biochemistry and molecular control of how mitochondria are synthesized, starting with the signals that initiate the process with the very first exercise bout. More recently, we have also turned toward an understanding of how exercise can also help to remove unhealthy and poorly functioning mitochondria from muscle, clearing the way for more efficient energy production, accompanied by less formation of negative by-products, like damaging free radicals."

Perhaps this comment from one of his former graduate students best summarizes why Hood is a finalist for the CAGS award: "Dr. Hood instructed me with patience and understanding, teaching me discipline, research techniques, and the basis of scientific research. Most importantly, he taught me how to balance the various aspects of my life as a graduate student."

To learn more about the Hood lab, visit .

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